Skip to main content

Guess the Number


Sage had a 1, Rosemary had an 11, and Tim had a 2.

From Sage's statement, he had to have an odd number. He knew that the sum of all three numbers was even, so if his number was odd, one of the other two numbers would have to be odd, and the other even, leaving them unequal.

Rosemary could deduce this, too, so when she saw an 11, she knew that Sage had a 1 and Tim had a 2. If she had seen a 12, she would have known that the other two boys each had a 1, which is contradicted by her saying that she already knew they all had different numbers. If she saw any number other than an 11 (say 9, for example), she would not have know which odd number Sage held. (In our example, he could have had a 1 and Tim a 4, or he could have had a 3 and Tim a 2).

Tim, understanding all of this, therefore knew their numbers.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Backwards Clock

  Suppose that a second pair of hands turns together with the wrong pair of hands, but then in the correct way. When the wrong pair is in the same position as the correct pair, this means that the time is shown in the right way. First look at the hour-hands that are at the twelve. One turns with the correct speed, the other with a speed that is twelve times as small. These two hands are in the same position again when the 'slow' hand has progressed x minutes. The fast hand then has progressed 60+x minutes. For the time x that passed, then holds: (60+x)/12 = x. This means that x = 5 5/11 minutes. For the minutes-hands that start at six holds the same. The confused clock therefore shows the correct time again at 5 5/11 minutes past 7. 

What is the 10 Digit Number?

  6210001000 There are 6 zeros, 2 ones, 1 two, 0 threes, 0 fours, 0 fives, 1 six, 0 sevens, 0 eights, and 0 nines.

Heads or Tails

Create a subgroup of any 128 pennies. Then flip over all 128. That group of 128 and the group of all the remaining pennies will have the same number of heads facing up. This works because the "tails" that you grab while making your subset of 128 will equal the "heads" that are left in the original pile. Once you flip your 128 coins over, these "tails" will turn into "heads" and the two groups will have a matching number of heads-up coins.