A man is walking down a road with a basket of eggs. As he
is walking he meets someone who buys one-half of his eggs
plus one-half of an egg.
He walks a little further and meets another person who buys
one-half of his eggs plus one-half of an egg.
After proceeding further he meets another person who buys
one-half of his eggs plus one half an egg. At this point, he
has sold all of his eggs, and he never broke an egg.
How many eggs did the man have to start with?
A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, "If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper then you have to give me $50, but if I cannot, I will pay you $50." The boy looked around and saw no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he'll just say he weighs more or less. In the end the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet?
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.