Examine the picture and determine whether the woman was killed or she committed a suicide.
SOLUTION
This was a murder, which was supposed to look like a suicide. These are some of the reasons:
1. The dead person has not finished their cigarette yet, which is a normal thing to do when someone commits a suicide. 2. The person is left-handed, judging by the position of the pen and the lamp, but is holding the gun in their right hand. 3. It was supposed to look like the person was writing a death note before killing themselves, but it is night and the lamp is not plugged in.
Once there was a recluse who always stayed in his home. The only time anyone visited him was when his food and supplies were delivered, but nobody came inside. One winter night there was a big storm and the recluse had a nervous breakdown. He went to his room, turned off all the lights and got in his bed. The next morning he found out that he caused the deaths of several hundred people. How?
SOLUTION
The recluse was living in a lighthouse. When he turned off the lights, he caused several ships to get wrecked in the cliffs and many people die.
Strata is a beautiful award-winning game with mesmerizing sound and unique puzzle concept. It contains hundreds of levels with common rules and final goal. Below I present you these rules and ask you to find a universal algorithm, which will allow you to solve easily every single level of the game.
The rules are simple – you begin with an nxn board, some squares of which are colored in arbitrary colors. Then you start placing stripes of whatever color you choose over entire rows and columns of the board. Your task is after placing all available 2n stripes, the color of every (colored) square to match the color of the stripe which has been placed second over it (on top).
Can you find a simple algorithm, which results in solving any level of the game, no matter the starting position? You can watch AppSpy’s video below for better understanding of the rules.
SOLUTION
Imagine the reverse Strata puzzle – the color of every square must match the color of the first stripe which is placed upon it. Clearly, there must be a line in the grid such that all colored squares in it have the same color. Take all such lines in the grid and place on them stripes of appropriate colors. Then erase the colors from all squares covered by the stripes and repeat the procedure until you place all 2n stripes. It is easy to see that if the reverse Strata puzzle has a solution, then we will find it using this strategy. Finally, in order to solve the original Strata puzzle, just place the stripes in reverse order.
On the table in front of you there is a square with 4 coins placed on its vertices. You are blindfolded and are given the task to turn all of the coins with either heads up or tails up. Every time you turn few of the coins however, the square rotates arbitrarily on the table. Find a strategy, such that no matter the starting arrangement of the coins and no matter how the square rotates after every flip of coins, eventually you will turn all of the coins with the same face up.
SOLUTION
First assume that there is even number of tails and even number of heads on the table – 2 of each kind. Flip 2 opposite coins. If after that not all coins have the same face up, the coins’ faces along the square’s corners show T-T-H-H. Now flip 2 adjacent coins. If after that not all coins have the same face up, the coins’ faces along the square’s corners show T-H-T-H. Now flip again 2 opposite coins and you are done.
Next assume that there were intially odd number of tails and odd number of heads on the table. Then after applying the moves described above, flip one of the coins upside down. Now there is even number of heads and even number of tails on the table, so you can repeat the same procedure and accomplish the task.
How can you throw a ball and have it come back to you, even though the ball is not attached to anything, doesn’t bounce off anything and nobody catches it and throws it back to you?
You have 15 identical coins – 2 of them made of pure gold and the other 13 made of nickel (covered with thin gold layer to mislead you). You also have a gold detector, with which you can detect if in any group of coins, there is at least one gold coin or not. How can you find the pure gold coins with only 7 uses of the detector?
SOLUTION
First, we note that if we have 1 gold ball only, then we need:
1 measurement in a group of 2 balls
2 measurements in a group of 4 balls
3 measurements in a group of 8 balls
Start by measuring 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
If there are gold balls in the group, then measure 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
If there are gold balls in the group, then measure 5, 6, 7.
If there are no gold balls among them, then there is a gold ball among 1, 2, 3, 4, and a gold ball among 8, 9, 10, 11, so we can find the gold balls with the remaining 2 measurements.
If there are gold balls in 5, 6, 7, then measure 5, 8, 9. If there are gold balls there, then 5 must be gold, and we can find the other gold ball among 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 with the remaining 3 measurements. If there is no gold ball among 5, 8, 9, then there is a gold ball among 1, 2, 3, 4, and a gold ball among 6, 7, so again we can find them with only 3 measurements.
If there are no gold balls in the group, then measure 5, 12, 13.
If there are no gold balls among them, then measure 14, 15. If none of them is gold, then measure individually 1, 2, and 3 to find which are the 2 gold balls among 1, 2, 3, 4. Otherwise, there is a gold ball among 1, 2, 3, 4, and among 14, 15, and we can find them with the remaining 3 measurements.
If there are gold balls among 5, 12, 13, then measure 5, 14, 15. If none of them is gold, then there is a gold ball among 1, 2, 3, 4, and a gold ball among 12, 13, so we can find them with 3 measurements. Otherwise, 5 is gold, and again we can find the other gold ball among 1, 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 14, 15 with 3 measurements.
If there are no gold balls among 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then we measure 6, 7, 8.
If there are gold balls in the group, then measure 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
If there are no gold balls among them, we measure individually 6, 7, 8, 14.
If there is a gold ball among 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, then there is another one among 6, 7, 8. We measure 8, 9. If none of them is gold, then we can find the gold among 6, 7, and the gold among 10, 11, 12, 13, with 3 measurements total. If there is a gold ball among 8, 9, then we measure 10, 11, 12, 13. If none of them is gold, then 9 is gold and we find the other gold ball among 6, 7, 8 with 2 more measurements. If there is a gold ball among 10, 11, 12, 13, then we can find it with 2 measurements. The other gold ball must be 8.
If there are no gold balls in the group, then measure 9, 10.
If there are no gold balls among them, then measure individually 11, 12, 13, 14.
If there are gold balls among 9, 10, then measure 11, 12, 13, 14. If there is a gold ball among them, then there is another one among 9, 10, and we can find them both with 3 measurements. Otherwise, we measure 9 and 10 individually.
Professor Vivek decided to test three of his students, Frank, Gary and Henry. The teacher took three hats, wrote on each hat a positive integer, and put the hats on the heads of the students. Each student could see the numbers written on the hats of the other two students but not the number written on his own hat.
The teacher said that one of the numbers is sum of the other two and started asking the students:
— Frank, do you know the number on your hat? — No, I don’t. — Gary, do you know the number on your hat? — No, I don’t. — Henry, do you know the number on your hat? — Yes, my number is 5.
What were the numbers which the teacher wrote on the hats?
SOLUTION
The numbers are 2, 3, and 5. First, we check that these numbers work.
Indeed, Frank would not be able to figure out whether his number is 2 or 8. Then, Gary would not be able to figure out whether his number is 3 or 7, since with numbers 2, 7, 5, Frank still would not have been able to figure his number out. Finally, Henry can conclude that his number is 5, because if it was 1, then Gary would have been able to conclude that his number is 3, due to Frank’s inability to figure his number out.
Next, we we check that there are no other solutions. We note that if the numbers are 1, 4, 3, or 3, 2, 1, or 4, 1, 3, neither Frank nor Gary would have been able to figure their number out. Therefore, if the numbers were 1, 4, 5, or 3, 2, 5, or 4, 1, 5, Henry would not have been able to figure his number out. Thus, 5 is not the largest number.
Similarly, if the numbers are X, X + 5, X + 10, or X + 5, X, X + 10, once again, neither Frank nor Gary would have been able to figure their number out. Therefore, if the numbers were X, X + 5, 5, or X + 5, X, 5, Henry would not have been able to figure his number out.
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