100 prisoners are stuck in the prison in solitary cells. The warden of the prison got bored one day and offered them a challenge. He will put one prisoner per day, selected at random (a prisoner can be selected more than once), into a special room with a light bulb and a switch which controls the bulb. No other prisoners can see or control the light bulb. The prisoner in the special room can either turn on the bulb, turn off the bulb or do nothing. On any day, the prisoners can stop this process and say "Every prisoner has been in the special room at least once". If that happens to be true, all the prisoners will be set free. If it is false, then all the prisoners will be executed. The prisoners are given some time to discuss and figure out a solution. How do they ensure they all go free?
On my way to St. Ives I saw a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack had 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. Kittens, cats, sacks, wives. How many were going to St. Ives?
Living above a star, I do not burn
Eleven friends and they do not turn
I can just be visited in a sequence, not once or repeatedly
PQRS are my initials
Can you tell my name accurately?
One day, all the courtiers from Akbar's court were gathered in the assembly hall when one of them told the Emperor that all his valuables had been stolen by a thief the previous night.
This shocked the Emperor to his core as the place where that courter stayed was the most secured in the kingdom. The Emperor thought that it is not at all possible for an outsider to enter into the courtier's house and steal the valuables. Only another courtier could commit this crime. He quickly called Birbal to identify the thief.
Birbal thought for a while and successfully solved the mystery by identifying the thief in just one statement.
What did Birbal say?
In 2011, people playing Foldit, an online puzzle game about protein folding, resolved the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys. Researchers had been working on the problem for 13 years. The gamers solved it in three weeks.