A chess tournament is taking place on knock-out terms (the one who loses the match is out of the game).
(a) If 10 matches are played in total, how many players participated?
(b) If 20 players took part in the tournament, how many matches were played?
A man plots the murder of his wife. His plan is full proof. Nobody saw them leaving their house. He stabbed her with a knife while driving. She died on the spot. He threw her body in a valley. He threw the knife carefully wiping his finger prints on a random garbage bin. Then he went back to his home and no one was watching him this time as well.
After an hour, he was called by the local police department who informed him that his wife was murdered. They asked him to reach the scene of crime immediately. But as soon as he arrived at the crime scene, he was arrested by them.
How did the police know that he himself is the murderer?
A wealthy man lives alone in a small cottage. Being partially handicapped he had everything delivered to his cottage. The mailman was delivering a letter one Thursday when he noticed that the front door was ajar. Through the opening he could see the man's body lying in a pool of dried blood. When a police officer arrived he surveyed the scene. On the porch were two bottles of warm milk, Monday's newspaper, a catalog, flyers, and unopened mail. The police officer suspects it was foul play. Who does he suspect and why?
In a box, there is a jumble of 7 red balls, 6 blue balls, 5 green balls, and 4 yellow balls. What is the minimum number of balls, will you have to pick up so that you have at least 4 balls of the same colour?
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.