June 2010
9 posts
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Tuesday Teaser #19
This week’s puzzle is an absolute classic with a great (and perhaps surprising) solution:
How many points are there on Earth where you can walk one mile south, then one mile east, then one mile north and end in the place that you started? For the sake of argument, assume the Earth is a perfect sphere (of course).
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Answer: Tuesday Teaser #18
The trick to this puzzle is to look at the glass side-on and imagine it in two dimensions as a simple rectangle. Now, if you tip the glass so that the water touches the rim of the glass, the water will form a line that approximately meets the opposite diagonal. If the line meets the glass above the opposite diagonal, then the glass must be more than half full and vice-versa.
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Delorean (10)
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World Cup 2010 Preview
With less than 24 hours to go, I’m incredibly excited about this year’s World Cup. It looks to be one of the most open tournaments that I can remember, with plenty of genuine contenders for the title. There are nine countries who I think could realistically win the trophy (Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain), but there are plenty of good...
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Tuesday Teaser #18
An easier and less mathematical riddle this week for the benefit of @aliholli and @nixenpixen:
Suppose you’re in an empty room with no method of escape. The only object in the room is a transparent glass of water. The glass is a perfect cylinder which looks half full, though you can’t be sure exactly. You are only allowed to leave the room if you can accurately determine whether the...
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Answer: Tuesday Teaser #17
Incredibly, they aren’t the same. Let’s calculate the two using conditional probability:
In the first problem, we want to find the probability that both children are boys given that at least one of them is. Using the formula for conditional probability this is equal to:
P(Both children are boys AND at least one child is a boy)/P(at least one child is a boy)
It’s clear that...
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