May 13
Got this puzzle in an email-forward today…
IF:
2+3=10
7+2=63
6+5=66
8+4=96
THEN
9+7=?
Answer in the comments section.
Mar 24
Microsoft has decided to launch MCP (Microsoft Calculator Pro) as their flagship product from 2009. This product’s new version is capable of solving mathematical problems posed in the natural language and is currently in the System test phase and the ST team has raised numerous critical defects for the development team. The product manager needs your help to verify the results of few complicated calculations.
The six mathematical calculations which MCP is having problems with, are given below. The product manager wants to compare your results with the results shown by the software. So, please do the calculations and once you get the answers, anagram it and get the password for this clue.
1) Number of Oscars won by Titanic – 2
2) DCXCIV
3) The number of stars in the Universe (as of 24th March 2009 morning 9.23 am) is 4.2 x 10^24 . The average Cypriot family has 2.3 kids. So, if there are 43560 square feet in an acre, how many humps do 461 dromedary camels have?
4) 0!
5) Number of biscuits in a baker’s dozen + Number of stars on the American Flag + 3
6) 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841?71693993751058209749445923078164
Mar 21
I have always been fascinated by puzzles based on logic rather than pure mathematics. How these puzzles are different from the usual mathematical ones is that at some point in time of solving the puzzle, you have to use your logical part of the brain and eliminate some answers and not just keep doing some calculations to reach the answer. Below are two such puzzles which are extremely interesting to solve (in my opinion). The answers are written in white just after the puzzle. So , to see the answer, highlight the empty area after the puzzle. Enjoy!
Puzzle 1:
A census-taker(CT) (one who counts the population) goes to a house and knocks on the door. A woman(W) opens the door. Given below is the conversation they have:
CT: Ma’am, how many children do you have ?
W: Three
CT: Can you please tell me their ages ?
W: I won’t tell you their ages, but i can give you clues.
CT: wow, a puzzle! Ok, give me the clues.
W: Clue No 1: The product of my kid’s ages is 36.
W: Clue No 2: The sum of their ages is equal to my door number.
CT looks at the door number, thinks for a while and says “i need more clues”.
W: Okay, one more clue. My eldest plays baseball.
CT: Thank you Ma’am. I know their ages now.
Now, all you have to do is to find their ages with the above information.
Solution:
The woman has three children. The product of their ages is 36.
First, write down the possible combinations. They are 36/1/1, 18/2/1, 9/2/2, 9/4/1, 6/6/1, 6/3/2 and 4/3/3. Now, try to do what CT would have done i.e. take the totals of the ages which respectively are 38, 21, 13, 14, 13, 11 and 10.
The CT knew the door number (he can see it). If one of the totals matched the door number, he would have solved the puzzle. But, he asked for more clues. That means that the door number appeared as the total of more than one combination, which in our case is 9/2/2 and 6/6/1 whose total is 13.
The next clue was “My eldest plays baseball”. This clue may seem weird, but it is actually a very intelligent clue. When the woman refers to “my eldest”, it means that her eldest kid is unique which is not the case with the twins of 6/6/1. So, the answer is 9/2/2.
Puzzle 2:
There are 37 students in a classroom. What is the probability that at least 4 of them would have their birthday in the same month? Though this looks like a mathematical question, it is actually to be solved logically.
Solution:
Assume the worst case of the students’ birthdays being split right across all the months. If there were 36 students in the class, then 3 of them would have their birthdays in each month(36/12 months = 3 in each month). If a 37th student appears, this his/her birthday could be in any of the 12 months. What that means is that, for sure he would be at least the 4th person to have a birthday in any month. So, the probability is 1 (one) i.e. surely in a class of 37 students, at least 4 would have their birthday in the same month.
Hope you enjoyed the puzzles. If you liked them , you can check out more puzzles from the Logic Puzzle quiz which i conducted some time back.
Mar 21
Questions from a puzzle event called “Crack the logic” which i conducted in amdocs. The numbers in the brackets were the points awarded for each of the questions.
1. Give an English word which starts with “he” and ends with “he”, other than the word “he”.[1]
2. How many questions are there in this quiz? [1]
3. How many squares are present in the figure below? [2]
4. Which famous ex-American President wrote the autobiography of Bill Clinton titled “My Life”? [1]
5. There is a circular forest of radius 10 Kilometers. How far can a dog run into this forest? [1]
*6. What is the next in the series? [2]
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
7. What is the next word in the series? [2]
AID GUESS DEGREE ESTATE COLUMN SENSE _____
8. Fill in the blank. [1]
Prince Charles is Prince Harry’s father’s ______.
*9. Find the next number in the series. In case you didn’t know, 10^27 is called Octillion. [2]
10^3, 10^9, 10^27, 10^2, 1, ___
*10.The Amdocs Social Club had recently ordered a new display board advertising the facilities of the new Gym. The new gym had treadmills and cycles. But, the writing on the display board mentioning “treadmills and cycles” was not very friendly to the eye as the words were spaced too close to each other. So, Gopa wrote a mail to Nicos asking him to get this corrected. Nicos noticed that the sentence written by Gopa had the word “and” appearing five times one after another. What could have been the sentence that Gopa had written in the mail? [2]
