You want to boil a two-minute egg. If you only have a three-minute timer (hourglass), a four-minute timer and a five-minute timer, how can you boil the egg for only two minutes?
It can't be seen, can't be felt, can't be heard, and can't be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after, Ends life, and kills laughter.
What is it?
When a clock is observed, the hour hand is at a minute mark and the minutes hand is six minutes ahead of it.
When the clock is observed again after some time, the hour hand is precisely on a different minute mark and the minute hand is seven minutes ahead of it.
Can you calculate how much time has elapsed between the two observations?
Three people enter a room and have a green or blue hat placed on their heads. They cannot see their own hat but can see the other hats.
The colour of each hat is purely random. They could all be green, blue, or any combination of green and blue.
They need to guess their own hat colour by writing it on a piece of paper, or they can write 'pass'.
They cannot communicate with each other in any way once the game starts. But they can have a strategy meeting before the game.
If at least one of them guesses correctly they win $10,000 each, but if anyone guesses incorrectly they all get nothing.
What is the best strategy?
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.
