It’s the Friday puzzle!

Imagine that you have to make the number 8 from the numbers 4, 7, 6 and 3.  The rules are simple.  You cannot join the numbers together (so 4 and 7 cannot become 47),  have to use each number once and only once, and are only allowed to add, subtract, multiply or divide them.  You might do something like this…..

4+7 = 11

11-6=5

and 5+3=8

So, here is the puzzle….can you make the number 24 with the number 5, 5, 5, and 1 (again, you cannot join the numbers together, have to use each number once and only once, and are only allowed to add, subtract, multiply or divide them)?

As ever, please do NOT post your answer, but feel free to say if you have a solution and how long it took.  Answer on Monday!  have a good weekend.

CGI or genuine?

Lots of people have sent me this great ad…..

Quite frankly, I love it.  What makes it especially interesting is that very little of it is CGI.  So, here is the question – can you identify the CGI?  The answer is out there on You Tube, but I will post a short solution later on.

Big Ben Illusion

This wonderful illusion was created by Frederick Kingdom and colleagues at McGill University, and is one of my favourites. Big Ben appears to tilt more in the photo on the right, but in reality the two photographs are identical….

Any idea why it works?

It’s the Friday Puzzle!

A ten volume set of books are placed upright, in order, on a shelf (see photograph).  Each book is 4.5 cm thick, and has two covers, each of which are .5 cm thick.  A bookworm starts on page 1 of volume 1 and munches his way in a straight horizontal line through to the last page of the tenth volume.  What distance does the worm travel?

As ever, please do NOT post your solution, but feel free to say whether you have a solution and how long it took you.  Answer on Monday.  Have a great weekend!

It’s the Friday Puzzle!

John is sent out to complete a census. He knocks on the door of house number 56 and Jane answers.
Here is the conversation:
John: How many children do you have?
Jane: Three
John: What are their ages?
Jane: I am part of Richard Wiseman’s Friday puzzle and so cannot tell you directly.
John: Oh

Jane: However, I am allowed to tell you that when you multiply their ages together you get 36
John: Oh
Jane: Not only that, see that house directly across the street? Well, the sum of their ages is equal to the number of windows in that house.
John: Oh
Jane: And my oldest really likes bears.
John: Oh
At that point John knows the ages of the three children. What are their ages?

As ever, please do not post a solution, but feel free to say if you solved it and how long it took. Answer on Monday.
Oh, and I will be running a fun session on the science of speed-dating at the Glasgow Science Centre tonight. Details here. Please come along and say hi.

Improve your love life with science

With Valentines Day just around the corner, I thought that it might be a good time to give ten scientifically-supported 59 Second tips to increase your chances of finding and keeping the love of your life…..

It’s the Friday Puzzle!

This week I have decided to make the puzzle devil-related.  Imagine running into the devil.

He leans forward and hands you a cloth bag containing a marble, and explains that the marble inside the bag is either black or white.  He then adds a white marble, shakes the bag, and take out a marble at random. It’s white.

Then the devil says ‘What are the odds that the remaining marble is white?  Oh, and if you get it wrong, I get your soul’.

What do you say?

As ever, please do NOT post your answers, but feel free to say if you think you have solved it and how long it took.  Solution on Monday.

Would you sign a pact with the devil?

A good friend of mine is into the occult.  Yesterday we were chatting and he suggested that despite their apparent doubt about the supernatural, skeptics, agnostics, humanists and atheists would be reluctant to make a pact with the devil.  I immediately thought ‘blog post’!

Are you prepared to make a pact with the devil?  If you are up for it, please cut and paste the following sentence into the comments box, and add your first name….

“I agree that upon my death the devil can have my soul for eternal damnation”

Then describe how you feel doing that.  Alternatively, say why you are not prepared to make the pact.