REMINDERS: Answers in red. Solvers (submitted/correct) in blue. (Forgive any omissions, but feel free to inform.) Comments in green. For further elaboration on solutions, please feel free to ask!
- If all of the integers from 1 – 1000, inclusive were written out – and then arranged in alphabetical order – what would be the very last entry in the list? (Hint: This one’s in honor of a recent specially-celebrated numerical day. Thanks to Millie Johnson for the idea.) Two (hundred) twenty-two. (In honor of 2/22/22.) Frank Green, Rita Barger, Alexis Avis, Jim Waterman, Anita Dixon
- One half of N plus one half of N equals 5. Find the value of N. N = 5. Frank Green, Rita Barger, Alexis Avis, Anita Dixon
- Consider this string: 8 2 7 5 6 4 5 3 4. If the difference between the first number and the fifth number is greater than the difference between the first number and the sixth number, respond with the number 7. Otherwise, take the difference between the differences and respond with that number. 2. Frank Green, Rita Barger, Alexis Avis, Anita Dixon
- In Boontown, streets that begin with a vowel run east-west, unless they also end with a vowel, in which case they run north-south. Other streets can go either way. Berkeley street is perpendicular to Alice street. In which direction does Berkeley run? East-West. Frank Green, Rita Barger, Jim Waterman, Anita Dixon
- A customer in a restaurant found a dead fly in his coffee. He sent the waiter back for a fresh cup. After a sip he shouted “This is the same cup of coffee I had before!” How did he know? One possible reason: He had sugared his coffee and it was still sugared. Frank Green, Rita Barger, Jim Waterman
- Have we done this one before? Can’t remember, but, either way, have fun!. (NOTE: There are actually two different answers here [see Bonus #4], but for this BT, let’s assume that the speaker is female, as the BT seems to do.) C. Daughter. Anita Dixon.
- (How about a couple of those sometimes-annoying [?] “think outside the box” BTs? 🙂 ). Forrest left home running. He ran a ways and then turned left, ran the same distance and turned left again, ran the same distance and turned left again. When he got home, there were two masked men. Who were they? The catcher and umpire. (Forrest was running the bases.) Frank Green, Don Hayes, Marcia Morriset
- A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it? The river was iced over, and the dog crossed on the ice. (Others possible?) No solvers.
- Write numerically the number ten thousand ten and ten thousandths. 10010.010 Frank Green, Alexis Avis, Anita Dixon.
- A four-digit (base 10) number has a 4, a 5,and two 8’s as its digits. What is the smallest such number that is divisible a) by 4? 4588 b) by 5? 4885 Frank Green, Alexis Avis, Anita Dixon.
- One million two hundred thirty four thousand five hundred sixty seven divided by 8 = x with a remainder of y. Find y. 7 Frank Green, Alexis Avis, Anita Dixon.
- What is the largest prime factor of 87! + 88! ? (NOTE: n! = 1*2*3*4* . . . .*n) 89. (Nifty solution on request.) Anita Dixon.
- You have 3 boxes, one red, one blue, and one green. Inside each box is one marble which is the same color as the box. Someone takes each ball out and puts in a different colored box. You open only the red box and pull out a green marble. What color is the marble in the blue box? Red Frank Green, Anita Dixon.
- A golf ball falls randomly onto a circular green of radius 10 meters, with the hole in the exact middle. What is the probability that the ball falls within 1 meter of the cup? 1/10 (or equivalent) Frank Green, Anita Dixon.
- What is the sum of the first three primes? 10 Frank Green, Anita Dixon.
BONUS 1: (This puzzle was used last fall as NPR’s Puzzle Challenge on their “Sunday Puzzle” portion of the Weekend Edition program. I found it while reading an article about one of the over 2000 folks who solved it.) Think of a popular tourist attraction with two words. The second, fourth, and sixth letters of the second word, in order, spell the first name of a famous author. The last four letters of the first word spell the author’s last name. Who is the author, and what is the tourist attraction? Ayn Rand. Grand Canyon Frank Green, Alexis Avis, Anita Dixon.
Bonus 2: Which number(s) from 1 to 100 inclusive has/have the most factors? 60, 72, 84, 90, and 96 all have twelve. Anita Dixon.
Bonus 3: Take any prime number greater than 3, square it and subtract 1. What is the largest number that must be a factor of the result. 24. (this is a surprising result, with a beautiful and elegant ‘proof’. Holler if you’d like to see it.) Anita Dixon.
Bonus 4: See #6 above. The multiple choices there don’t seem to account for a male speaker. But isn’t it possible? What would the answer be if so? (Let’s assume all relationships are biological [no step/half siblings, parents, etc.] Son-in-law. Anita Dixon.
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