Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Dots and Rows

This is an old one my dad told me, though I've also heard it as a CarTalk puzzler before:




Above is a straight row of 4 dots: it is a 4-dot row.
Next, we have a set of 13 dots that creates 5 different 4-dot rows.

 









Now again create 5 different 4-dot rows, but using only 10 dots.  Rows must be straight.  Oh, and before you tricksters try giving me a single long string of dots, a 5-dot row does not count as 2 4-dot rows.  You can use a dot multiple times, but rows can't overlap.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Cubic Calendar

From http://www.folj.com/puzzles/
A corporate businessman has two cubes on his office desk. Every day he arranges both cubes so that the front faces show the current day of the month.

What numbers are on the faces of the cubes to allow this?

Note: You can't represent the day "7" with a single cube with a side that says 7 on it. You have to use both cubes all the time. So the 7th day would be "07".

Thursday, May 13, 2010

A Lost and Hungry Vagabond



This is from the Car Talk Puzzler:
A lost and hungry vagabond happened upon a pair of travelers one of whom had three loaves of bread while the other had five. All of the loaves were the same size and weight.

The two travelers decided to share their bread with the vagabond, and that the eight loaves should be shared equally among the three of them. When they had finished, the vagabond reached into his pocket and pulled out eight coins. He handed three coins to the traveler who had had the three loaves and five to the other one and disappeared into the inky shadows.

The next morning, right after no breakfast, the one who had received the three coins said to the other one, 'I don't think he should have given three coins to me and five to you. It's not fair.' And he was right. How should the coins have been split up?