You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different. How do you measure 45 minutes?
An octopus has 8 legs. A hippogriff has 6 legs and 2 pairs of wings. A sphinx has 6 legs and one pair of wings. Now we have all 3 kinds and a total of 18 insects in a cage. We have a total of 118 legs and 20 pairs of wings. How many insects do we have of each kind?
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.
