Your job is to measure 45 minutes if you have only two cords and matches to light the cords.
1. The two cords are twisted from various materials, so their different segments can burn at different rates.
2. Each cord burns from end to end in exactly one hour.
One night, a woman receives a call from the police. They tell her that her husband was murdered and that she should come to the crime scene as soon as possible. The woman drops the phone, shocked, and drives 20 minutes to the crime scene. As soon as she reaches the crime scene, the police arrest her and she is convicted of murder. How do the police know she committed the crime?
One evening there was a murder in the home of a married couple, their son and daughter. One of these four people murdered one of the others. One of the members of the family witnessed the crime.
The other one helped the murderer.
These are the things we know for sure:
1. The witness and the one who helped the murderer were not of the same sex.
2. The oldest person and the witness were not of the same sex.
3. The youngest person and the victim were not of the same sex.
4. The one who helped the murderer was older than the victim.
5. The father was the oldest member of the family.
6. The murderer was not the youngest member of the family.
Jessica is telling her friends this story and asks them to guess if it’s the truth or a lie: “There was a man sitting in a house at night that had no lights on at all. There was no lamp, no candle, and no other source of light. Yet, he sat in the house and read his book happily.†Her friends say she’s lying, but Jessica corrects them and says she’s telling the truth. Jessica’s story is true—but how?
The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.
