
ANSWERS
Brainteasers 33
Gulp!
1. Its 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?
ANSWER: Pick up up the middle full glass and empty it into
the middle empty glass. What you now see is: empty, full, empty, full, empty, full.
Just Visiting
2. You are a character in an Agatha Christie novel and have just arrived at the country
home of a dissolute Lord where all kinds of unlikely mayhem is going to break out over the
coming weekend. As you step into your hosts 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 fathers son, but I have no brothers or sons." So whos the person in
the painting?
ANSWER: The host's daughter.
Sam Spade Redux
3. Now were in an unpublished Dashiel Hammett novel.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. Only ONE of the
statements is true:
Tom says, "I didnt do it."
Dick says, "Tom is lying."
Harry says, ""Dick is lying."
Joe says, "Dick did it."
Whos the murderer?
ANSWER: Assume that Tom is telling the truth. That means
Dicks statement is a lie and Harrys statement is the truth. Which gives us TWO
correct statements. But we are told that only ONE of the four statements is true. Which
means that Toms statement must be a lie, so hes the murderer, and Dicks
statement is the only truthful one.
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?
ANSWER: On the palm of the left hand facing out.
Way Beyond Advil
5. We have two clocks. One gains one minute per hour, the other loses one minute per hour.
We start both clocks simultaneously when they each show 12 oclock. How many hours
will pass before they again show the same time?
ANSWER: 360 hours. Every hour the clocks get two minutes
father apart. After 30 hours theyll be one hour apart. On a clock face, 12 hours
apart is the same as being together. So the answer is 30 times 12 = 360.
END
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