A research team went to a village somewhere between the jungles of Africa. Luckily for them, they reached the day when quite an interesting custom was to be performed. The custom was performed once a year as they confirmed and was performed in order to collect the taxes from every male of the region.
The taxes were to be paid in the form of grains. Everyone must pay pounds of grain equaling his respective age. This means a 20-year-old will have to pay 20 pounds of grain and a 30-year-old will pay 30 pounds of grain and so on.
The chief who collects the tax has 7 weights and a large 2-pan scale to weigh. But there is another custom that the chief can weigh only three of the seven weights.
Can you find out the weights of the seven weights? Also, what is the maximum age of the man that can be weighed for the payment of taxes?
There is a barrel with no lid and some wine in it. 'This barrel of wine is more than half full,' said Curly. 'No it's not,' says Mo. 'It's less than half full.' Without any measuring implements and without removing any wine from the barrel, how can they easily determine who is correct?
A king sentenced a man to the death sentence for some crime he had committed. Known for his kindness, the king told the culprit that he had a choice to die in a way he decides.
The culprit was clever and said something that saved him from death. What method do you think he must have chosen for his death?
A worker is to perform work for you for seven straight days. In return for his work, you will pay him 1/7th of a bar of gold per day. The worker requires a daily payment of 1/7th of the bar of gold. What and where are the fewest number of cuts to the bar of gold that will allow you to pay him 1/7th each day?
John and Jill are madly in love with each other. To remind Jill of his pure love, John wants to send her a ring by post but in their country where burglary is quite prominent, any package that is not locked comes under the risk of being stolen for the contents.
John and Jill possess many padlocks but neither one of them has the other key.
Can you find a way John can send the ring to Jill safely?
John gave half of the apples he had plus one more to Jacob. He gave half of the remaining ones plus one more to James. Now, John was left with just one apple.
Can you find out how many did he have in the beginning?
A dying old man wants to divide his entire land between his only two sons. Since his only wish is to treat them as equal as both of them have been too good to him, he wants to divide his land equally between them. The problem is that the land is significantly irregular in shape and thus there is no choice of cutting them into two equal halves.
Can you help him divide the land in a manner that both of his sons will be happy?
In 2007, a puzzle was released and $2 million prizes were offered for the first complete solution. The competition ended at noon on 31 December 2010, with no solution being found. Wiki
