Riddles and Puzzles

by **trinicardinal** on Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:40 am

A homeless man collects cigarette butts from which he makes whole cigarettes. One day he collects 64 butts. Assuming he smokes all the cigarettes he made how many cigarettes did he smoke?[/quote]
I think you at least need to tell us how many butts it takes to make a whole cigarette.[/quote]
My reasoning is that if, say, he needs four butts to make one cigarette, then 64 butts becomes 16 cigarettes, which become 16 butts when he smokes them, which then become four cigarettes, which become four butts when he smokes those, which become one final cigarette, which he smokes down to a butt which he will have to save till tomorrow (if he lives that long). Therefore, that day, he smoked 16 + 4 + 1 cigarettes for a total of 21.[/quote]

oooops... sorry folks... left out that little bit.[quote="ender516"][quote="ender516"][quote="trinicardinal"]I guess its more than 24 hours now...

ender516 has the correct reasoning so ... your turn

by **YoursFalsey** on Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:08 pm

Here's a quicky while we are waiting for Ender to give us a new puzzle (The ciggy problem reminded me of this one. Don't ask me why.)

Imagine we know the following things about the U.S. Senate and its 100 members:
1) All Senators are either honest or corrupt. (All very black or white- none of the shades of grey and equivocations that politicians love here...)
2) There is at least one honest Senator.
3) Given any two Senators, one of them is corrupt.

How many Senators are corrupt?

by **jonesthecurl** on Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:13 am

99, if you mean @ least one of them is corrupt. Otherwise, I don't thnk it makes sense.

by **YoursFalsey** on Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:27 am

jonesthecurl wrote:99, if you mean @ least one of them is corrupt. Otherwise, I don't thnk it makes sense.

Sorry, I do mean at least one is corrupt in fact 3). I forgot and was thinking in English which is less precise then thinking in Math/Logic.

At least one senator (Call him X) is honest. But for any pair, at least one is corrupt. So of the pair X and any other Senator, the other senator is corrupt. So all Senators other then X are corrupt. 99 Corrupt, 1 Honest.

by **ender516** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:05 am

Glad to see you all have kept busy while I was digging something up. Try a little math on a Monday with this one:

I have some nickels and some dimes. Altogether they are worth $3.60. If my nickels were dimes and my dimes were nickels, I would have $5.40. How many nickels and how many dimes do I have? (For those international players unfamiliar with North American coinage, a nickel is worth $0.05 and a dime is worth $0.10.)

by **Mr. Squirrel** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:08 am

ender516 wrote:Glad to see you all have kept busy while I was digging something up. Try a little math on a Monday with this one:

I have some nickels and some dimes. Altogether they are worth $3.60. If my nickels were dimes and my dimes were nickels, I would have $5.40. How many nickels and how many dimes do I have? (For those international players unfamiliar with North American coinage, a nickel is worth $0.05 and a dime is worth $0.10.)

48 nickels
12 dimes

by **ender516** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:51 am

Mr. Squirrel wrote:
ender516 wrote:Glad to see you all have kept busy while I was digging something up. Try a little math on a Monday with this one:

I have some nickels and some dimes. Altogether they are worth $3.60. If my nickels were dimes and my dimes were nickels, I would have $5.40. How many nickels and how many dimes do I have? (For those international players unfamiliar with North American coinage, a nickel is worth $0.05 and a dime is worth $0.10.)

48 nickels
12 dimes

You nailed it. (Aren't you glad I didn't ask you to show your work?) Your turn to puzzle us.

by **jonesthecurl** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 12:42 pm

(curl shows the "work":
15n +15d = 900.
n+d= 60
(10n + 5d) - (5n + 10d) = 540-360 =180=5n-5d.
n-d = 36.
(n+d) + (n-d) =60+36
2n= 96
n=48
d = 60-48 = 12)

by **ender516** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:25 pm

jonesthecurl wrote:(curl shows the "work":
15n +15d = 900.
n+d= 60
(10n + 5d) - (5n + 10d) = 540-360 =180=5n-5d.
n-d = 36.
(n+d) + (n-d) =60+36
2n= 96
n=48
d = 60-48 = 12)

Not bad, but I would have started with the equations which come directly from the puzzle:

5n + 10d =360
10n +5d = 540

Your first equation is clearly derived from these, but my teachers always liked to see the problem restated in equation form.

by **jonesthecurl** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:40 pm

fair enough, I was just keeping it short.

It's a long while since I had to hand in maths to a teacher...

by **ender516** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:55 pm

jonesthecurl wrote:fair enough, I was just keeping it short.

It's a long while since I had to hand in maths to a teacher...

It's been a very long while for me as well, but my daughter is starting high school, so I am very aware of the proper forms again.

by **Mr. Squirrel** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:21 pm

Alright. Classic style riddle:

The man who invented it,
Doesn't want it for himself.
The man who bought it,
Doesn't need it for himself.
The man who needs it,
will never know it.

What is it?

by **Apayah** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:10 pm

easy one.. coffin

by **Mr. Squirrel** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:25 pm

Apayah wrote:easy one.. coffin

correct. your go.

by **Apayah** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:05 pm

math question:
15 people are trapped aboard a ship that's going to sink in exactly 20 minutes their only change for survival is the 5 person live raft stowed on their vessel (all passenger can't swim)

a round trip to the nearest island and back to the boat take nine minutes on the raft how many people will live to see dry land?

by **jonesthecurl** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:21 pm

Apayah wrote:math question:
15 people are trapped aboard a ship that's going to sink in exactly 20 minutes their only change for survival is the 5 person live raft stowed on their vessel (all passenger can't swim)

a round trip to the nearest island and back to the boat take nine minutes on the raft how many people will live to see dry land?

Assuming that you can't see the dry land from the boat, 18 people.

by **Apayah** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:36 pm

jonesthecurl wrote:Assuming that you can't see the dry land from the boat, 18 people.

but there's only 15 people on the ship
from where the extra 3 people came from? :-s

by **jonesthecurl** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:37 pm

bugger. read it wrong.

by **jonesthecurl** on Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:53 pm

I had the numbers on the wrong columns.

I reckon 2 people don't make it, i.e . 13 do.

by **Apayah** on Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:48 am

jonesthecurl wrote:I had the numbers on the wrong columns.

I reckon 2 people don't make it, i.e . 13 do.

correct! your turn

by **jonesthecurl** on Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:59 am

what is the next letter in this sequence

w,i,t,n,l...?

by **ender516** on Tue Sep 29, 2009 12:38 pm

jonesthecurl wrote:what is the next letter in this sequence

w,i,t,n,l...?

i
what is the next letter in this sequence

by **jonesthecurl** on Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:13 pm

you coulda left people to puzzle over it for a while.
Correct, your go.

by **ender516** on Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:37 pm

jonesthecurl wrote:you coulda left people to puzzle over it for a while.
Correct, your go.

Sorry, it looked a little too easy to leave lying there for long.

Try this lateral thinking puzzle, and explain just what is going on:

A man walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at him. The man says, "Thank you," and walks out.

by **Gozar** on Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:29 pm

ender516 wrote:
jonesthecurl wrote:you coulda left people to puzzle over it for a while.
Correct, your go.

Sorry, it looked a little too easy to leave lying there for long.

Try this lateral thinking puzzle, and explain just what is going on:

A man walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at him. The man says, "Thank you," and walks out.

I figure that the man has the hiccups, and the gun scares them away.

I have no puzzle at this time, so if I am right, someone else can have a go.