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NASA was considering sending canaries into space to study them under zero gravity. The project was scrapped when someone realized that in spite of having sufficient water supplies, they could die of dehydration within a few hours. Why?
Unlike humans, birds need gravity in order to swallow. Thus, in space they wouldn’t be able to drink and will die of dehydration.
Can you recognize which famous movies are depicted by these images?
There is a room with a table, 53 bicycles, and four men. One of the four men is dead. How did he die?
The “bicycles” are the (famous) Bicycle playing cards. The four men were playing poker, but one of them was cheating with an extra card, so he got killed.
How many species of animals did Moses take on the Ark with him?
None. It was Noah’s ark, not Moses’.
Raise me none and I am unbeaten.
Raise me once and I am excessive.
Raise me twice and I am forward.
Raise me thrice and I am eaten.
All said right, but wrongly spelled.
Who am I?
The answer is the NUMBER 2:
2⁰ = 1 (“one”), which is unbeaten;
2¹ = 2 (“too”), which is excessive;
2² = 4 (“fore”), which is forward;
2³ = 8 (“ate”), which is eaten.
If all plinks are plonks and some plunks are plinks, which of these statements must be true?
Remark: “Some” means more than 0.
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.
In 1972 there was a chess game between two famous players. One of them lost the game without moving any pieces. How?
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.
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?
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.
Can you recognize which famous movies are depicted by these images?
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