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Sequence 1, 11, 21, 1112

What follows next in the following sequence:

1, 11, 21, 1112, 3112, 211213, 312213, ?

Every term in the sequence describes how many 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. were there in the previous term. “11” means that in the previous term there was one 1. “21” means that in the previous term there were two 1s. “1112” means that in the previous term there were one 1 and one 2. “3112” means that in the previous term there were three 1s and one 2. “211213” means that in the previous term there were two 1s, one 2 and one 3. “312213” means that in the previous term there were three 1s, two 2s and one 3. Therefore, the next number in the sequence should be 212223.

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The Monty Hall Show

You are in Monty Hall’s TV show where in the final round the host gives you the option to open one of three boxes and to receive the reward inside. Two of the boxes contain just a penny, while the third box contains $1.000.000. In order to make the game more exciting, after you pick your choice, the rules require the host to open one of the two remaining boxes, such that it contains a penny inside. After that he asks you whether you want to keep your chosen box or to switch it with the third remaining one. What should you do?

This is the so called “Monty Hall” problem. The answer is that in order to maximize your chances of winning $1.000.000, you should switch your box. The reason is that if initially you picked a box with a penny, then after switching you will get a box with $1.000.000. If initially you picked a box with $1.000.000, then after switching you will get a box with a penny. Since in the beginning the chance to get a penny is 2/3, then after switching your chance to get $1.000.000 is also 2/3. If you stay with your current box, then your chance to get $1.000.000 will be just 1/3.

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Optical Illusions

If you count carefully the number of people before the tiles scramble and after that, you will see that one person disappears. Can you explain how this is possible?

Similarly, in this picture it looks like after changing the places of the tiles in the diagram, their total area decreases by one. Can you explain this?

If you look carefully, you will notice that every person in the picture of 12 people is slightly taller than the corresponding person in the picture of 13 people. Basically, we can cut little pieces from 12 different people without making noticeable changes and arrange them into a new person.

For the second question, none of the shapes before and after the scrambling is really a triangle. One of them is a bit curved in at the hypotenuse and the other one is a bit curved out. This is barely noticeable, because the red and the blue triangle have very similar proportions of their sides – 5/2 ~ 7/3.

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3 Men, 1 Woman

Warning: this puzzle involves mature themes that are inappropriate for younger audiences. If you are not an adult, please skip this puzzle.

3 men must have sex with 1 woman, but they have only 2 condoms. Each of the 4 people has some unique STD which they don’t want to transfer to the rest. What can they do?

They can start by putting the two condoms on top of each other and letting the first man use them. After that, the second man can take the inner condom out and use just the outer condom. Finally, the third man can take the removed inner condom, turn it inside out, and place it back inside the outer condom. Then he, he can use the two condoms simultaneously.

Water with Ice

You have a glass of water and an ice cube floating in it. When the ice cube melts, will the water level increase, decrease or remain the same?

It will remain the same. The amount of water that the ice cube displaces is equal to its mass. Since the mass does not change and the density of water is equal to 1, the extra water after melting will be the same amount as the displaced water before that.

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Heads Up, Heads Down

You are blindfolded and on the table, in front of you, 50 coins are placed. You are told that X of them are heads up and the rest are heads down. Then you are asked to separate the coins into two groups and optionally flip some of them so that the number of heads in both groups becomes the same. How can you do this?

Separate the coins into one group of X coins and into another group of 50-X coins, then flip every coin in the first group. If in the first group there were Y heads up initially, then after flipping there would be X-Y – exactly the number of heads up in the second group.

Mixed Up Pills

One patient has two bottles with 30 pills each and every night has to take one pill from each of the bottles. Unfortunately one night after he takes out a pill from the first bottle and places it on the table, by accident drops two pills from the second bottle right next to it. The pills look identical, so he can not differentiate them. It is very important that he continues his treatment diligently throughout the entire timespan of 30 days. What should the patient do?

The patient should keep taking one pill from each bottle until there are 4 pills remaining – 1 in the first bottle and 3 on the table. On the 29th day he splits the pills in halves and takes one half from each pill. On the 30th day he takes the remaining halves of the pills.