Brain Teasers 21 - Puzzle Prime

Plinks, Plonks, and Plunks

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Deduction

Difficulty: Medium

If all plinks are plonks and some plunks are plinks, which of these statements must be true?

All plinks are plunks.
Some plonks are plunks.
Some plinks are not plunks.

Remark: “Some” means more than 0.

SOLUTION

The first statement says that the set of plonks contains the set of plinks, and the second statement says that there is at least one plunk-plink. Therefore, that plunk-plink must also be a plonk, and the second statement is true.

The first and the third statements, however, do not need to be true. Indeed, it is possible that there is a plink that is not a plunk, or that all plinks are plunks.

Unknown Author October 16, 2021

2 Comments

Lost Without Moving

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Lateral

Difficulty: Medium

In 1972 there was a chess game between two famous players. One of them lost the game without moving any pieces. How?

SOLUTION

It was the game in 1972 between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, when Bobby Fischer’s clock ran out of time. Fischer himself even did not appear for the game due to his protest against the cameras installed in the playing hall.

Unknown Author October 13, 2021

1 Comment

Envelopes with Numbers

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Hard Tags: Probability

You are given 2 sealed envelopes with numbers inside. You are told that one of the numbers is twice as much as the other one. You grab one of the envelopes and right before you open it, you make the following calculation:

“If this envelope contains X inside, then the other envelope contains either X/2 or 2X inside. Since the chance that the other envelope contains a larger number is exactly 50%, the expected money I will get after switching is X/4 + X = 1.25X > X. Therefore, I should switch!”

Clearly, this reasoning is wrong, since you can’t possibly deduce which envelope of the two contains a larger number. Where is the mistake?

SOLUTION

The trick is that conditionally on the fact that your envelope contains X, it is not true that the other envelope has 50% chance of containing either X/2 or 2X. The reason is that it is impossible that all amounts of dollars appear in the envelopes with the same probabilities (densities). Thus, for example, if it is very unlikely that an envelope contains more than 1000, and you open an envelope with 800 inside, you will not think that the other envelope has 50% chance of containing 1600.

Unknown Author October 10, 2021

5 Comments

A Dream Last Night

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Lateral

Difficulty: Medium

The director of a company wakes up early for a morning flight. He realizes that he forgot some papers at work and goes there. In the office, he meets the night watchman who is leaving for home. The watchman stops the director and tells him that he shouldn’t fly. “I had a dream last night,” the watchman says, “I saw you crash. I saw you die sir, please do not fly today.”

The director listens to the advice of the watchman and decides not to travel. On the next day, the director returns, gives the watchman a generous bonus, and then he fires him. Why?

SOLUTION

The plane indeed crashed, so the watchman saved the director’s live. However, apparently, he has been sleeping during his shift, which is the reason the director fires him.

Unknown Author October 4, 2021

0 Comments

Trips in Bulmenia

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Expert Tags: Graph Theory

In the country of Bulmenia there are 40 big cities. Each of them is connected with 4 other big cities via paths, and you can get from any city to any other via these paths.

Show that you can create a trip passing through every path exactly once that ends in the city it starts from.
Show that you can create one or multiple trips, such that every trip passes through different cities, ends in the city it starts from, and also every city is part of exactly one trip.

Remark: The paths can intersect each other, but you cannot switch from one path to another midway.

SOLUTION

Let us call a trip that ends in the city it starts from a “loop”. Start from any city and keep traveling without using any path twice. If at some point you can’t continue, stop, creating a loop, and modify your trip as follows. Pick any city you have visited from which there are unused paths going out, and once again start traveling along the unused paths until you can’t continue further. Add the newly formed loop to the original trip and continue this procedure until there are no unused paths left, thus completing a loop passing through every path exactly once. This method works because there is an even number of paths going out from every city and you can get from any city to any other.
Use the loop from 1. and color every second path on it in black. Then, notice that there are 2 black paths going out from every city. Therefore, these black paths create one or multiple disjoint loops passing through every city in Bulmenia exactly once.

Source:

IMO 2020

Unknown Author September 28, 2021

0 Comments

Self-Referential Aptitude Test

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Deduction

Difficulty: Expert

The solution to this puzzle is unique, but you don’t need this information in order to find it.

The first question whose answer is B is question:
(A) 1
(B) 2
(C) 3
(D) 4
(E) 5
The only two consecutive questions with identical answers are questions:(A) 6 and 7
(B) 7 and 8
(C) 8 and 9
(D) 9 and 10
(E) 10 and 11
The number of questions with the answer E is:
(A) 0
(B) 1
(C) 2
(D) 3
(E) 4
The number of questions with the answer A is:
(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8
The answer to this question is the same as the answer to question:
(A) 1
(B) 2
(C) 3
(D) 4
(E) 5
The answer to question 17 is:
(A) C
(B) D
(C) E
(D) none of the above
(E) all of the above
Alphabetically, the answer to this question and the answer to the following question are:
(A) 4 apart
(B) 3 apart
(C) 2 apart
(D) 1 apart
(E) the same
The number of questions whose answers are vowels is:
(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8
The next question with the same answer as this one is question:
(A) 10
(B) 11
(C) 12
(D) 13
(E) 14
The answer to question 16 is:
(A) D
(B) A
(C) E
(D) B
(E) C
The number of questions preceding this one with the answer B is:
(A) 0
(B) 1
(C) 2
(D) 3
(E) 4
The number of questions whose answer is a consonant is:
(A) an even number
(B) an odd number
(C) a perfect square
(D) a prime
(E) divisible by 5
The only odd-numbered problem with answer A is:
(A) 9
(B) 11
(C) 13
(D) 15
(E) 17
The number of questions with answer D is
(A) 6
(B) 7
(C) 8
(D) 9
(E) 10
The answer to question 12 is:
(A) A
(B) B
(C) C
(D) D
(E) E
The answer to question 10 is:
(A) D
(B) C
(C) B
(D) A
(E) E
The answer to question 6 is:
(A) C
(B) D
(C) E
(D) none of the above
(E) all of the above
The number of questions with answer A equals the number of questions with answer:
(A) B
(B) C
(C) D
(D) E
(E) none of the above
The answer to this question is:
(A) A
(B) B
(C) C
(D) D
(E) E
Standardized test is to intelligence as barometer is to:
(A) temperature (only)
(B) wind-velocity (only)
(C) latitude (only)
(D) longitude (only)
(E) temperature, wind-velocity, latitude, and longitude

Remark: The answer to question 20. is (E).

SOLUTION

The answers are:

Jim Propp September 22, 2021

0 Comments

Beautiful Tapestry

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Advanced

A piece of a beautiful tapestry is missing. Can you figure out what its colors are?

SOLUTION

The tapestry represents the factorizations of the numbers from 2 to 26.

Each 12×12 square on the tapestry represents a number between 2 and 26, such that all squares representing prime numbers are painted in single colors. The colors of the squares representing composite numbers are determined by the factors of these numbers.

The number 2 is represented by orange color (top left corner). The number 3 is represented by green color. The number 4 = 2×2 is represented once again by orange (2, 2) color. The number 5 is represented by red color. The number 6 = 2×3 is represented by orange (2) and green (3) colors. The number 7 is represented by blue color. The number 8 = 2×2×2 is represented once again by orange (2, 2, 2) color. The number 9 =3×3 is represented once again by green (3, 3) color. The number 10 = 2×5 is represented by orange (2) and red (5) colors, and so on.

Unknown Author September 19, 2021

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FEATURED

Does Not Divide Another

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Hard Tags: Featured

How many numbers between 1 and 100 can you pick at most, so that none of them divide another?

SOLUTION

You can choose fifty numbers at most: 51, 52, 53, … , 100.

In order to see that you cannot choose more than fifty, express each number in the form 2ⁿ×m, where m is an odd number. Since no two numbers can have the same m in their expressions, and there are only fifty odd numbers between 1 and 100, the statement of the problem follows.

Unknown Author September 13, 2021

1 Comment

Surrounded by Rooks

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Chess

Difficulty: Medium

White to play and mate Black in 20 moves.

SOLUTION

The moves are as follows:

Qb7+ Rc5c6
Qa5+ Rc4c5
Qb3+ Rd4c4
Qd2+ Re4d4
Qf3+ Re5e4
Qg5+ e5
Qf7+ Rd6e6
Qd8+ Rc6d6
Qb7+ Rc5c6
Qa5+ Rc4c5
Qb3+ Rd4c4
Qd2+ Re4d4
Qf3+ e4
Qg5+ Re6e5
Qf7+ Rd6e6
Qd8+ Rc6d6
Qb7+ Rc5c6
Qa5+ Rc4c5
Qb3+ Rd4c4
Qd2x

Unknown Author September 7, 2021

2 Comments

Murder Mystery Puzzles

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Deduction

Difficulty: Advanced

In the three murder cases below, you can read the testimonies of all suspects. For each case, find who the killer is, knowing that no 2 people are in the same row or column, and that the killer was alone in a room with the victim.

SOLUTION

The solutions are shown below.

Hiroji Osaka September 1, 2021

0 Comments