Brainteasers 33

Gulp!
1. It’s a typically improbable situation that you only find in puzzles: You are standing somewhere looking at a table. On this table are six glasses in a row. The first three are empty and the last three are full of water. Your job? By handling and moving only ONE glass, how can you change the arrangement so that no empty glass is next to another empty glass and no full glass is next to another full class?


Just Visiting
2. You are a character in an Agatha Christie novel and have just arrived at the country home of a dissolute aristocrat where a lot of unlikely mayhem is going to break out over the coming weekend. As you step into your host’s library, you notice and admire a large oil portrait over the fireplace. You ask who the person in the picture is. Your aristocratic host, devious as ever, says, "The father of the person in the portrait is my father’s son, but I have no brothers or sons." So who’s the person in the painting?


Sam Spade Redux
3. Now we’re in an unpublished Dashiel Hammett novel. The as usual inept San Francisco police have detained four people, Tom, Dick, Harry, and Joe. The police know that one of them committed a murder. Each suspect makes a statement. And the police know that only ONE of the statements is true:
    Tom says, "I didn’t do it."
    Dick says, "Tom is lying."
    Harry says, ""Dick is lying."
    Joe says, "Dick did it."
Who’s the murderer?


O.J. Redux
4. A little test for your visualization skills (keep the Advil handy for this one): Imagine a right-hand glove (no fair using a real glove!). Imagine turning it inside out and then putting it on your left hand. Where is the material in the glove which would normally touch the palm of the right hand? Is it touching the palm of the left hand, the back of the left hand, or is it on the palm of the left hand but facing out, or on the back of the left hand facing out?


Way Beyond Advil
5. You have two clocks. One gains one minute per hour, the other loses one minute per hour. You start both clocks simultaneously when they each show 12 o’clock. How many hours will pass before they again show the same time?

ANSWERS > >

END

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