Solution:

17 min

The initial solution most people will think of is to use the fastest person as an usher to guide everyone across. How long would that take? 10 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 2 = 21 minutes. Is that it? No. That would make this question too simple even as a warm up question.

Let's brainstorm a little further. To reduce the amount of time, we should find a way for 10 and 7 to go together. If they cross together, then we need one of them to come back to get the others. That would not be ideal. How do we get around that? Maybe we can have 1 waiting on the other side to bring the torch back. Ahaa, we are getting closer. The fastest way to get 1 across and be back is to use 2 to usher 1 across. So let's put all this together.

1 and 2 go cross
2 comes back
7 and 10 go across
1 comes back
1 and 2 go across (done)

Total time = 2 + 2 + 10 + 1 + 2 = 17 minutes

Solution:

It will take the man 58 minutes to reach the top.

Since he is climbing 3 feet and falling 2 feet back every passing minute, he is actually climbing 1 feet every minute.
Therefore, he would have climbed 57 feet in 57 minutes. The remaining distance is 3 feet. He will take one more minute to climb it and reach the surface. Since he has reached the top surface, he won't slip back.

Solution:

10 prisoners must sample the wine. Bonus points if you worked out a way to ensure than no more than 8 prisoners die.

Number all bottles using binary digits. Assign each prisoner to one of the binary flags. Prisoners must take a sip from each bottle where their binary flag is set.

Here is how you would find one poisoned bottle out of eight total bottles of wine.

Bottle 1 Bottle 2 Bottle 3 Bottle 4 Bottle 5 Bottle 6 Bottle 7 Bottle 8
Prisoner A X X X X
Prisoner B X X X X
Prisoner C X X X X
In the above example, if all prisoners die, bottle 8 is bad. If none die, bottle 1 is bad. If A & B dies, bottle 4 is bad.

With ten people there are 1024 unique combination so you could test up to 1024 bottles of wine.

Each of the ten prisoners will take a small sip from about 500 bottles. Each sip should take no longer than 30 seconds and should be a very small amount. Small sips not only leave more wine for guests. Small sips also avoid death by alcohol poisoning. As long as each prisoner is administered about a milliliter from each bottle, they will only consume the equivalent of about one bottle of wine each.

Each prisoner will have at least a fifty percent chance of living. There is only one binary combination where all prisoners must sip from the wine. If there are ten prisoners then there are ten more combination where all but one prisoner must sip from the wine. By avoiding these two types of combination you can ensure no more than 8 prisoners die.

One viewer felt that this solution was in flagrant contempt of restaurant etiquette. The emperor paid for this wine, so there should be no need to prove to the guests that wine is the same as the label. I am not even sure if ancient wine even came with labels affixed. However, it is true that after leaving the wine open for a day, that this medieval wine will taste more like vinegar than it ever did. C'est la vie.

Solution:

A Question

Solution:

40 balls

Solution:

Since each one of them gave one answer wrong, this means that each one of them gave two answers right.

Let us assume that Student A gave a wrong answer to the first question. This will mean that Student B also gave a wrong answer for the first. This will conclude that the rest of the two answers given by them are correct. However, the answers are different and thus it is not possible.

Thus both Student A and Student B must be right with the first question and the answer to the first is two.

If you keep applying the same logic, you will come to a conclusion that following are the correct answers:
Q1. Two
Q2. Three
Q3. Two

Solution:

The 100th statement for sure is incorrect because it says that at least 100 of the statements are incorrect.

Suppose if that is correct, then 100 statements cannot be true.
This suggests that the 100th statement is incorrect and that the first statement is true.

Similarly 99 statements cannot be true because if they were true, then two statements would become correct i.e. the 1st and the 99th.
But the 99th statement says that at least 99 are incorrect.
This suggests that the 99th statement is incorrect and that 2ndone is true.

If we keep analyzing is the same way till the end, we will find out that only the first fifty statements are true and all the remaining ones are incorrect.

Solution:

The ball will take infinite bounces before it is stopped. As per the question it will keep on bouncing half way up every time it hits the ground. But gravity will play its part at certain point of time which will make it stop.

Solution:

Tuesday

We know that Christanio Ronaldo tells the truth on only a single day of the week. If the statement on day 1 is untrue, this means that he tells the truth on Monday or Tuesday. If the statement on day 3 is untrue, this means that he tells the truth on Wednesday or Friday. Since Christanio Ronaldo tells the truth on only one day, these statements cannot both be untrue. So, exactly one of these statements must be true, and the statement on day 2 must be untrue.
Assume that the statement on day 1 is true. Then the statement on day 3 must be untrue, from which follows that Christanio Ronaldo tells the truth on Wednesday or Friday. So, day 1 is a Wednesday or a Friday. Therefore, day 2 is a Thursday or a Saturday. However, this would imply that the statement on day 2 is true, which is impossible. From this we can conclude that the statement on day 1 must be untrue.

This means that Christanio Ronaldo told the truth on day 3 and that this day is a Monday or a Tuesday. So day 2 is a Sunday or a Monday. Because the statement on day 2 must be untrue, we can conclude that day 2 is a Monday.

So day 3 is a Tuesday. Therefore, the day on which Christanio Ronaldo tells the truth is Tuesday.

Solution:

The first step that they will take will be a leap of logic. What it means is that they will deduce that every color must appear twice at least. Why? Because the master logician has assured them that the puzzle will not be impossible for anyone of them. And if a color appears only once in the circle, the person wearing it will have no clue about that color which will not be fair for him.

Then the logicians will follow the same and look for all the colors of hats in the circle. If one of them sees a color just once, he can safely assume that he is also wearing the hat of the same color as by leap of logic, no color can appear just once. Thus when the bell is rung, he will leave.

In the similar fashion, if anyone sees another color just once, he can determine that he is wearing the hat of the same color and will leave when the bell rings or will be disqualified and sent home. Unvaryingly, if a color is seen twice, they will be eliminated after the first bell. Hence, there must be at least three hats of any of the remaining color.

Assume that you are sitting in the circle and you don’t see a color once but see it twice. Then if they were the only two hats of the same color, the logicians must have left at the first bell already. But they did not. Which means that there are three hats of that color and you are wearing one. Thus you will leave after the second bell.

Solution:

Adam and Eve were the only people without navel. As they were not born out of a mother, they never had umbilical cords and thus never had navels.