Riddles and puzzles

No Googling etc for the answers of any puzzles people post :D

Lets see who can get this correct first, start with an easy question: How many times can you subtract 6 from 36?

Infinity? I'll get 30 each time, though.

The question is ambiguous.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

No Googling etc for the answers of any puzzles people post :D

Lets see who can get this correct first, start with an easy question: How many times can you subtract 6 from 36?

---

The answer is either one time, six times, or some set of infinity.

Simple riddle: Red as blood, sweet as wine. My heart is hard but my flesh is fine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

Lets see who can get this correct first, start with an easy question: How many times can you subtract 6 from 36?

---

Depends if you following through after the fact. once you subtract it once, the new number is no longer 36.

Pretty sure this was in a Professor Layton game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

Simple riddle: Red as blood, sweet as wine. My heart is hard but my flesh is fine.

---

Lots of fruit work for this. Cherries, nectarines/peaches, etc.

A fairly simple puzzle:

Mr. Red, Mr. Yellow, Mr. Blue, and Mr. Green each wears a shirt that is the same color as the name of one of the other men. Each man is wearing a different color. Mr. Red and Mr. Yellow are older than the man in green. The man in red is taller than Mr. Yellow. Which man wears a yellow shirt?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wraith

A fairly simple puzzle:

Mr. Red, Mr. Yellow, Mr. Blue, and Mr. Green each wears a shirt that is the same color as the name of one of the other men. Each man is wearing a different color. Mr. Red and Mr. Yellow are older than the man in green. The man in red is taller than Mr. Yellow. Which man wears a yellow shirt?

---

Spoiler:

Mr. Red = Yellow shirt, Mr. Yellow = Blue shirt, Mr. Green = Red shirt, Mr. Blue = Green shirt. I think.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wiggin

Spoiler:

Mr. Red = Yellow shirt, Mr. Yellow = Blue shirt, Mr. Green = Red shirt, Mr. Blue = Green shirt. I think.

---

That's what I came up with also.

Mine was once (after that you're subtracting from 30). Didn't know that was in Layton lol

Spoiler:

Mr Red I think

Edit: Yes I got the same.

A chocolate bar costs $1 but for 3 wrappers the shopkeeper will give you another chocolate bar. How many bars can you get from $15?

Spoiler:

22.

Spoiler:

15 bought directly + (15/3 = 5) from those wrappers
But then you have 5 wrappers left, so you can get one more (21)
And now you have 3 wrappers left, for one last one (22)

edit: Also, all solutions to my last one were correct.

Here's one I always thought was fun:

Five pirates come across a treasure of 100 gold coins. By pirate law, the method they use to split the loot is as follows:

The pirate with the highest rank proposes a way to split that loot. If at least half of the pirates vote to approve that plan, the loot is split accordingly. Otherwise, the pirate who proposed that plan is cut up into tiny pieces and fed to the sharks and the remaining pirates start again with the pirate of the next highest rank.

These particular pirates are all perfect logicians, and want to stay alive, get as much gold as possible, and see as many of the other pirates die as possible, in that order of priority. They'll never sacrifice from one of the higher priorities for a lesser priority.

How is the treasure split?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

A chocolate bar costs $1 but for 3 wrappers the shopkeeper will give you another chocolate bar. How many bars can you get from $15?

---

Spoiler:

15..you won't have any wrappers till after you purchase (and eat)

Ohh, uh, I dunno, the pirate of the highest rank proposes 33 coins to himself and the two other highest ranking pirates and the other two can go and fuck themselves?

There's a better solution. :p

First two die, third gets 99, fourth gets 1, fifth gets zero?

Edit: No its at least half not more than half. I'm stumped.

Spoiler:

But then you will have the wrappers crow. Wraiths answer was mine, surprising how many people go for either 20 or 21

The head pirate claims the treasure is the subject of an ancient pirate curse and offers to take the all the treasure and the curse upon himself alone. He then murders the second pirate in his sleep when he starts asking too many questions. The head pirate uses his gold to fund a successful career of pirating spanning two decades and he earns himself a fearsome reputation for both brilliance and ruthlessness until his ship is cornered by the Royal Navy off Port Royal and his crew sells him out in exchange for clemency. He is hung in 1657, but his legacy lives on to this day where his exploits are often mentioned in the same breath as those of a Blackbeard or Barbarossa.

Really stuck on the pirate one. For every solution then think up a what if. How about first two die, third gets 99, fifth gets 1?

It's a version of an ultimatum game. You have to think of it game-theoretically, starting from the preferences of the last pirate and going backwards.

Spoiler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_game

Well, shit, didn't realize it was that formalized. Way to google, Loki!

I got that it was an ultimatum game from the way you phrased it. I didn't hear about this particular variant before, but they're all pretty similar (you generally offer slightly more than nothing and the other player will have to accept; the NE can even be offering nothing, because the other player is indifferent between rejecting and accepting your proposal). :o Games like these are one of the reasons I like game theory.

What's more interesting is that people normally DON'T follow this kind of logic. There's some sense of 'equitableness' or 'fairness' that gets involved, and it's likely that a real person would vote to dismember the pirate who asked for 98% of the booty. It implies that homo economicus is a bit of a misnomer... either that, or the priorities of the game are so constrained that they don't take into account other motivations that would change the equilibrium values.

Homo economicus is a simplifying assumption. No one should seriously consider that people only place utility in money. There's nothing inherently irrational about valuing things other than money.

Agreed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wraith

A fairly simple puzzle:

Mr. Red, Mr. Yellow, Mr. Blue, and Mr. Green each wears a shirt that is the same color as the name of one of the other men. Each man is wearing a different color. Mr. Red and Mr. Yellow are older than the man in green. The man in red is taller than Mr. Yellow. Which man wears a yellow shirt?

---

This was one of the bonus questions in Layton's curious village. The world needs more riddles :p

Figured it was Game Theory, I'd got half way there.

Visual puzzles are always fun. Got any of those?

You have 7 matches laid out in the following pattern:

\/||=|

How can you move just one match to make the equation true? You can't use one to change the = to does not equal.

Found the answer to that one. Don't think I'd be able to figure it out. :o

Loki,

Quote:

---

No Googling etc for the answers of any puzzles people post

---

Quote:

---

No Googling etc for the answers

---

Quote:

---

No Googling

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

You have 7 matches laid out in the following pattern:

\/||=|

How can you move just one match to make the equation true? You can't use one to change the = to does not equal.

---

you're either going for both sides being 1 or 11. So I'm assuming you need an ASCII eye to make some random operation.

You move one of the ones in the = to make it >?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

you're either going for both sides being 1 or 11. So I'm assuming you need an ASCII eye to make some random operation.

---

Close. Hint:

Spoiler:

Both sides end up equalling one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

You move one of the ones in the = to make it >?

---

No, there's no funny business.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RandBlade

No, there's no funny business.

---

Oh, please, the solution is absurdly funny business. It requires a specific form of mathematical notation that isn't really written that way in order to work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wiggin

Oh, please, the solution is absurdly funny business. It requires a specific form of mathematical notation that isn't really written that way in order to work.

---

Spoiler:

All one equal one?

No, the common solution I've heard is:

Spoiler:

To take the I in the VII and make it a bar on top so it turns into sqrt(1). Blech.

That does make more sense notationally

I have a couple of books of mathematically inclined puzzles, I'll see about translating some if I can be bothered at some point

Yes that's the answer. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nessus

That does make more sense notationally

---

Come on, even if you were to use that sign to denote that operation (which, let's be honest, most mathematicians just use exponents because they're easier to manipulate and write coherently), you wouldn't write it like that. Eh.

If we're doing math puzzles, we should just do math games. I always enjoyed playing four fours as a kid...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wiggin

Come on, even if you were to use that sign to denote that operation (which, let's be honest, most mathematicians just use exponents because they're easier to manipulate and write coherently), you wouldn't write it like that. Eh.

If we're doing math puzzles, we should just do math games. I always enjoyed playing four fours as a kid...

---

Ugh, I hate having to converse inside spoilers, but

Spoiler:

for single numbers/variables I use the square root sign, it's with long, complicated expressions that it makes sense to bust out the ^½, or even better the ^-½. You are right that the modern sqrt operator doesn't look like that, but in match-stick ASCII that's what you're reduced to. Is is dumb, sure.

Math games, you say? What's four fours?