a) One person had a basement illuminated by three electric bulbs. Switches of these bulbs are located outside the basement, so that having switched on any of the switches, the owner has to go down to the basement to see which lamp switches on. One day he came up with a way to determine for each switch which bulb it switched on, descending into the basement exactly once. What is the method?
b) If he goes down to the basement exactly twice, how many bulbs can he identify the switches for?
Peter thought of a number between 1 to 200. What is the fewest number of questions for which you can guess the number if Peter answers
a) “yes ” or “no”;
b) “yes”, “no” or “I do not know”
for every question?
There are 4 coins. Of the four coins, one is fake (it differs in weight from the real ones, but it is not known if it is heavier or lighter). Find the fake coin using two weighings on scales without weights.
Author: D.E. Shnol
On the island of Truthland, all of the inhabitants may be mistaken, but the younger ones never contradict the elders, and when the older ones contradict the younger ones, they (the elders) are not mistaken. Between the residents A, B and C there was such a conversation:
A: B is the tallest.
B: A is the tallest.
C: I’m taller than B.
Does it follow from this conversation that the younger the person, the taller he or she is (for the three people having this conversation)?
Author: I.V. Izmestyev
Postman Pat did not want to give away the parcel. So, Matt suggested that he play the following game: every move, Pat writes in a line from left to right the letters M and P, randomly alternating them, until he has a line made up of 11 letters. Matt, after each of Pat’s moves, if he wants, swaps any two letters. If in the end it turns out that the recorded word is a palindrome (that is, it is the same if read from left to right and right to left), then Pat gives Matt the parcel. Can Matt play in such a way as to get the parcel?
Authors: Folklore
There are 13 pupils in the school of witchcraft and wizardry. Before the Clairvoyance exam, the teacher put them at a round table and asked to guess who would receive the clairvoyant’s diploma. The students said nothing about themselves and two of their neighbours, but they wrote the following about all of the others: “None of these ten will get the diploma!" Of course, all of those who passed the exam guessed correctly, and all of the other students were mistaken. How many wizards received a diploma?
In an attempt create diversity the government of the planet hired \(100\) truth tellers and \(100\) liars. Each of them has at least one friend. Once exactly \(100\) members said: “All my friends are honest” and exactly \(100\) members said: “All my friends are liars.” What is the smallest possible number of pairs of friends, one of whom is honest and the other a liar?
Of five coins, two are fake. One of the counterfeit coins is lighter than the real one, and the other is heavier than the real one by as much as the lighter one is lighter than the real coin.
Explain how in the three weighings, you can find both fake coins using scales without weights.
A traveller met five inhabitants of the planet of liars and truth tellers. To his question: “How many truth tellers are there among you?” the first replied: “None!", and another two answered: “One.” What did the final two say?
The sheikh spread out his treasures in nine sacks: 1 kg in the first bag, 2 kg in the second bag, 3 kg in the third bag, and so on, and 9 kg in the ninth bag. The insidious official stole a part of the treasure from one bag. How can the sheikh work out from which bag the official stole the treasure from using two weighings?