The 125 Best Brain Teasers of All Time Page 4
CLUE
ANSWER
42
Containers
MATH
Here is a measurement puzzle that appears in many guises in puzzledom.
Mark has a 3-gallon container, a 5-gallon container, and a 10-gallon container. He needs to measure out exactly 7 gallons of water. How does he do it?
CLUE
ANSWER
43
The Beverley Family
LOGIC
As you know, this genre was invented by Henry Dudeney. There are now many variants of his original puzzle, so here’s one more for you.
In the Beverley family, who is the father’s father’s son in relation to the Beverley’s only son? Beverley is the father, by the way.
Many of Dudeney’s puzzle ideas continue to surface in different versions throughout the puzzle world today. One of his best-known collections of puzzles is called the The Canterbury Puzzles (1907), because the collection features characters from Geoffrey Chaucer’s (1343–1400) work The Canterbury Tales (1476).
CLUE
ANSWER
44
Reversals
WORDPLAY
The following puzzle involves a play on words that reaches deep into puzzle history. It constitutes an interplay between spelling and meaning—much like anagrams! You are given two meanings or definitions. The first one defines the word, while the second one defines the word you will get by reversing the first and last letters. Here’s an example: (1) “enjoying oneself in a noisy and lively way” and (2) “a rigid bar placed on a pivot, used to lift a heavy load.” The answer is revel/lever. The term revel corresponds to meaning 1. Then switching the first and last letters of this word produces the word lever, which corresponds to meaning 2.
The following two meanings refer to words that have their first and last letters reversed:
(1) “guide someone” and (2) “a bargain.” What are the two words?
The word pun means a play on words. As such, it is basically a type of puzzle. The word first appears in a 1662 work by John Dryden. While no one knows its true source, it could well have been coined by Dryden himself. The word punlet was used in 1819 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) and punkin by Henry James (1843–1916) in 1866, both with the same meaning as pun. These terms may well be alterations of the Italian word puntiglio, “pique,” which became punctilio in English. Whatever the case, the word has given birth to some derivatives of its own, such as punnigram, modeled on epigram, and punnology, modeled on etymology.
CLUE
ANSWER
45
Counting Pets
MATH
Conundrums that involve tricky counting go all the way back to antiquity. Mathematicians have invented them throughout history to play around with numbers. Here’s one for you that tests your cleverness in counting.
How many pets does my friend Mary have if all of them are dogs except two, all are cats except two, and all are rabbits except two?
CLUE
ANSWER
46
Counting Coins
MATH
As we have seen before, puzzles with coins are frequent in the universe of puzzle-making. Here’s yet another one.
Alex has 20 coins in his pocket, consisting of dimes and nickels. Altogether the coins add up to $1.35. How many of each coin type does he have?
CLUE
ANSWER
47
Rebus: Book Title
WORDPLAY
Recall the rebus puzzle we saw before (puzzle 24). Here’s a trickier one.
What book title does this rebus stand for?
(The) HCATAT
Incidentally, the French satirist Voltaire loved sending cards and letters composed as rebuses. Here’s one that he might have appreciated, if he knew this familiar English saying.
MOONCEON
CLUE
ANSWER
48
Phillips’s Liar Puzzle
LOGIC
In the 1930s, the British puzzlist Hubert Phillips (1891–1964) added a provoking new category to the logic puzzle genre, which can be called liar puzzles. Phillips was known among his readers as “Caliban,” the monstrous figure in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. Below is a puzzle derived from the type concocted by Phillips.
Five people were questioned yesterday by the police. One was suspected of having murdered a romantic rival. Here’s what each one said:
EILEEN: Earl is the murderer.
EMMA: Yes, Earl is the murderer.
EUGENIA: Earl is, without a shadow of a doubt, the murderer.
EDWIN: Emma lied.
EARL: Emma told the truth.
Four statements were lies and one was true—strangely, one by the murderer. Can you identify the murderer?
CLUE
ANSWER
49
What Did He Say?
LOGIC
The following puzzle is a paraphrased version of a classic nut credited to the same clever Caliban who invented liar puzzles. It never fails to stump those who come across it for the first time. Can you solve it?
The people of an island culture belong to one of two tribes: the Bawi or the Mawi. Since they look and dress alike, and speak the same language, they are virtually indistinguishable. It is known, however, that the members of the Bawi tribe always tell the truth, whereas the members of the Mawi tribe always lie. Dr. Mary Brown, a linguist, recently came across three men. “To which tribe do you belong?” she asked the first man. “Duma,” he replied in his native language. “What did he say?” asked Dr. Brown of the second and third men, both of whom had learned to speak some English. “He said that he is a Bawi,” said the second. “No, he said that he is a Mawi,” said the third. Can you figure out the tribes to which the second and third men belonged? And is it possible to determine the first man’s tribe?
CLUE
ANSWER
50
Nabokov’s Word Golf
WORDPLAY
Recalling Carroll’s doublet puzzle (puzzle 19), the following teaser was created by the mad narrator in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Pale Fire (1962), who calls it “word golf.” Here is Nabokov’s version of the puzzle. Can you solve it?
Change lass to male with three steps (or word links) between.
Before the Internet and online games, one of the most widely played games was solitaire, a card game played without a partner. The object is to form sequences of cards in either ascending or descending order (or sometimes both). There is little challenge to winning most solitaire games, mainly luck—though some games are in fact quite challenging since the way in which they are laid out guides the solution strategy. Therefore, many play solitaire not only to while away idle time, but to see if luck is on their side.
CLUE
ANSWER
51
Gardner’s Matching Shoes
LOGIC
Remember the earlier two puzzles (11 and 12) that involved drawing balls of different colors with the goal of obtaining a match? Well, here is a trickier version of this type of puzzle.
Assume a box contains 6 pairs of black shoes and 6 pairs of white shoes, all mixed up. What is the least number of shoes you must draw—with a blindfold on—to be sure of getting a matching pair of black or white shoes?
CLUE
ANSWER
52
The Snail’s Journey
MATH
The following puzzle is one of the oldest puzzles around. It turned up for the first time in the third section of Leonardo Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci (Book of the Abacus) of 1202. In that book, the animal involved was a lion. The snail version, on the other hand, can be traced to an arithmetic textbook written by Christoff Rudolff and published in Nuremberg in 1561. It is this version presented below.
A snail is at the bottom of a 30-foot well. Each day it crawls up 3 feet and slips back 2 feet. At that rate, on what day will the snail be able to reach the top of the well?
Claude Gaspard
Bachet de Méziriac (1581–1638) was a great mathematician whose compilation of puzzles, Problèmes plaisants et délectables, was published in 1612. This volume represented the first anthology of challenging math puzzles collected in a systematic way, many of which continue to exist today in different guises and versions.
CLUE
ANSWER
53
Anagram: Princess Diana
WORDPLAY
As you now know, it was historically believed that the anagram of a name contained the name-bearer’s destiny. Mary Queen of Scots (1542–1587), who died by execution, was posthumously memorialized with the Latin expression Trusavi regnis morte amara cada (“Thrust by force from my kingdom I fall by a foul death”), which is an anagram of Maria Steuarda Scotorum Regina (“Mary Stewart Queen of Scots”) (Note that V = U in Latin script). Eerie, isn’t it? The puzzle below is a modern-day example of a prophetic anagram.
By rearranging the letters of “Princess Diana” you will arrive at a phrase that describes how she died. Lewis Carroll was particularly gifted in crafting this type of apt tribute. His anagrams on the name of British humanitarian Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) constitutes a fitting eulogy: Florence Nightingale = Flit on, cheering angel! Another on the name of British political agitator William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) makes an appropriate commentary on his firebrand personality: William Ewart Gladstone = Wild agitator! Means well!
CLUE
ANSWER
54
Racing: Five Runners
LOGIC
In the style of the first two racing puzzles in this book, numbers 7 and 32, here is your third challenge of this category.
Five runners competed at a yearly racing meet. Rashad came in right after Mary and just ahead of Jack. Walter came in immediately after Jack, and Thomas beat Mary. Who came in first?
CLUE
ANSWER
55
Anagram: Credible
WORDPLAY
Here is a twist on the anagram puzzle genre.
If you put together the words livable and bee and anagrammatize them, you will get a word meaning “credible.”
Did you know that bees make their hives with hexagonal patterns because this is the most efficient geometrical figure for coverage of the area? Does this make bees puzzle-solvers? It depends on how we define puzzles, doesn’t it?
CLUE
ANSWER
56
Anagram: Space Traveler
WORDPLAY
Here is another anagram of the same type.
If you put together the words roast and tuna and anagrammatize them, you will get a word meaning “space traveler.”
A well-known anagram of Clint Eastwood’s name, which describes his early acting career, is Old West action.
CLUE
ANSWER
57
Lateral Thinking: Truck Stuck
LOGIC
As promised, here is your third and last puzzle in this genre. It is the classic conundrum, found in virtually all treatments of lateral thinking, from technical to just-for-fun.
A big truck got stuck under a bridge that was too low to pass beneath. The driver had underestimated the truck’s height. He brought in help and no one could figure it out without destroying the truck or the bridge. Then a child came along with a simple resolution to the problem. What was the child’s solution?
CLUE
ANSWER
58
Word Combinations
WORDPLAY
Word games exist in a variety of formats and styles, as we have seen. Here’s one made up especially for you.
Take one letter from each of the following five words. When combined in order of the current list, these letters produce a new five-letter word meaning “correct”:
trip, chin, enough, sigh, temper
Some crosswords allow for more than one correct answer to the same set of clues. Interestingly, they are called “Schrödinger crosswords,” alluding to the quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s (1887–1961) famous thought experiment known as “Schrödinger’s Cat,” in which a cat may be simultaneously both alive and dead.
CLUE
ANSWER
59
How Many Socks?
MATH
The origin of this mathematical teaser remains a mystery, but it shows up in classic collections all the time.
There are somewhere between 50 and 60 socks in a box. If you count them 3 at a time, you will find that 2 socks are left over. Alternatively, if you count them 5 at a time, you will find that 4 socks are left over. How many socks are in the box in total?
The great writer Lord Byron (1788–1824) once wrote the following witticism: “I know that two and two make four—and should be glad to prove it too if I could—though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.”
CLUE
ANSWER
60
Caliban’s Truth-Teller or Liar?
LOGIC
Hubert Phillips’s marvelous truth-teller-versus-liar puzzle is a favorite of mine. I just can’t get enough of this challenge myself, so here’s one more for you.
In a certain village, people belong to either a truth-telling or a liar clan. Dr. Brown, our linguist, ran into three men from that village, named Tor, Dor, and Gor.
BROWN: Tor, is Dor a truth-teller?
TOR: Yes.
BROWN: Dor, do Tor and Gor belong to the same clan?
DOR: No.
BROWN: Gor, is Dor a truth-teller?
GOR: Yes.
To which clan did each of them belong?
The Codex Cumanicus was a medieval handbook designed to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cumans, a nomadic Turkic people. For some reason, the book contained many riddles.
CLUE
ANSWER
61
Sequence: Seven Letters
LOGIC
This kind of puzzle finds its way into any classic repertoire of word games. It is similar to puzzle 9 presented earlier on the topic of lateral thinking.
What letter comes next?
OTTFFSS …
Here is a thought-provoking and very relevant fact. Because of promising research that puzzles help stave off memory loss, it is estimated that in the next few years the “brain fitness industry” will be worth over two billion dollars. So puzzles can indeed be profitable! But this does not deny their effectiveness and health value. While research has linked brain shrinkage to Alzheimer’s disease, studies also show that physical exercise combined with puzzle-solving constitutes a powerful united strategy for preventing brain shrinkage.
CLUE
ANSWER
62
Sequence: Eleven Letters
LOGIC
Here’s another “letter code” puzzle for you to decipher.
What letter comes next?
JFMAMJJASON …
No strict correlation has ever been found between IQ and ability to solve puzzles. This is good news, since it means that anyone, no matter how high or low their IQ, can do puzzles and enjoy them. Puzzles are effective for enhancing brain functioning because they stimulate the imagination and logical parts of the brain in tandem. Edgar Allan Poe called it the human being’s “bi-part soul.”
CLUE
ANSWER
63
Sequence: Six Letters
LOGIC
Now that you have gotten the hang of it, let’s do one more puzzle like number 62. As they say, practice makes perfect.
What letter comes next?
APIWAT …
Legend has it that the ancient Greek poet Homer’s death was precipitated by his distress at his failure to solve the following riddle posed to him by a group of fishermen: “What we caught, we threw away. What we could not catch, we kept.” The answer is “fleas.”
CLUE
ANSWER
64
Code Logic
LOGIC
The following sequence of digits hides an important American event:
741776
Can you figure out which one?
CLUE
ANSWER
65
How Much Does It Weigh?
MATH
Weighing challenges have always existed in human societies, so here’s another timeless weighing puzzle for you solve.
Nora placed a brick on one pan of a weighing scale. The scale balanced when she placed ¾ of another brick of the same kind plus ¾ of a kilogram weight on the other pan. How much did the original brick weigh?
A specialist in mechanical puzzles, the American Jerry Slocum, founded the Slocum Puzzle Foundation in 1993, a nonprofit organization aiming to educate people on the importance of puzzles.
CLUE
ANSWER
66
Change-a-Letter: Perspicuity
WORDPLAY
In this word game you must construct one word from another, simply on the basis of these two words’ definitions.