A bricklayer has 9 bricks. 8 bricks weigh the same amount, but one brick is slightly heavier than the rest. The bricklayer wants to find the heavy brick. He has a balance scale. How can he find the heavy brick in only two weighings? AnswerHe should divide the bricks into 3 groups of 3. He […]
Three friends planned to race against one another on their bikes. Neil owned a good racing bike and had lots of experience (he belonged to a bike club), while Oscar had just learnt to ride. The race seemed unfair, to say the least. After much discussion, they came up with a solution that seemed to
A man was called forth from his cubicle to perform a time-honoured task: get lunch.His boss, Medster, told him to get a certain number of salads and bagels. A salad costs $1.10, and a bagel costs $1.50. Medster gave him $32.10, the exact amount needed to buy all the items for 23 people (one item
Checkers, the smartest dog in the world, was doodling in his Maths diary and come up with three equations:A-B=CD/E=FG+H=IHe was about to write a fourth equation using multiplication when an interesting thought occurred to him. Instead of using a new set of numbers (J, K, L) for his fourth equation, he would use the answers
The mother is 21 years older than the child.6 years from now, the mother will be 5 times as old as the child.Question : Where is the father? AnswerThe mom is 21 years older than the child, so…M = C + 21In 6 years from now the mom will be 5 times as old as
Every student in a second grade class sends a valentine to each of the other students in the class, for a total of 306 valentines. How many students are in the class? Answer18 students
Daniel, my son, is exactly one-fifth of my age. In 21 years’ time, I will be exactly twice his age. My wife is exactly seven times older than my daughter, Jessica. In 8 years’ time, my wife will be three times older than Jessica. How old are Daniel and Jessica now? AnswerDaniel is 7 years
In order to win a free laptop computer, students had to guess the exact numbers of gumballs in a jar. The students guessed 45, 41, 55, 50 and 43, but none won. The guesses were off by 3, 7, 5, 7 and 2 (given in no particular order). From this information, can you determine the
Two Maths students, Al and Cal, each picked a number and then performed five Arithmetic operations.Al took his number and performed the following operations: (i) subtracted 3(ii) then multiplied by 4(iii) then added 5(iv) then took the square root(v) then divided by 3 Cal did just the opposite of his Maths buddy. He took his
Several contestants are in a chocolate-bunny eating contest. After 20 minutes of stuffing their faces, all of the bunnies have been eaten.One of the contestants remarks, “Isn’t it interesting that there were 7 times as many bunnies as contestants, but each of us ate a different number of bunnies?”Another contestant replies, “That certainly is interesting.
A child in the remote mountain village of Pliluk has fallen ill. Dotan, his brother Forak, and his sister Loti must get their father, the village healer, who is gathering herbs on the other side of the mountain. To make sure they get him as quickly as possible, they decide to split up. Forak will
Kurt was 1 year old when the family dog Jake was born. When Kurt was 8, he was twice as old as his little sister Katie. Their second dog, Kirby, was born when Katie was 2 years old. Now Katie is 2/3 the age of Kurt, and Kirby is 3 times as old as their
Your name is Cedrick; you’re a Ukrainian farmer with 15 pigs. Being a poor farmer in this country, you are given strange laws to abide by. You must have exactly 4 pens. You must have an odd number of pigs in each pen.How do you do it? AnswerPlace 5 pigs in each of three pens.
Henry had his head buried deep in his hands, fully frustrated by his Maths homework for the evening. Gretchen walked in to ask what was wrong, but before she got her question out, Henry launched into a tirade.“It’s completely unfair! How in the world could Mr. Simkin know what Fibonacci would have intended for the
While walking along the river, you come upon a countess. The countess looks very sad, so you ask what is wrong. It seems that the countess has lost some numbers and needs to find them. She says they are special numbers because: They are all between 300 and 600. The middle digit is odd and