A Name Kebab

A Name Kebab (something I made up) is a series of first and last names that fit together like a delicious Shish Kebab.

For example, the names Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Pierce and Pierce Brosnan form a tasty three-name kebab.

What is a five-name kebab that starts with Chris and ends with Berlin?

1. Chris Paul
2. Paul George
3. George Washington
4. Washington Irving
5. Irving Berlin

Feel free to share others in the comments.

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Asleep, Parts, Ideals Trianagrams

Rearrange the letters of the first word to form a new one, then rearrange the letters of the new word to form a third.

ASLEEP _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
PARTS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
IDEALS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

1. ASLEEP, PLEASE, ELAPSE
2. PARTS, TRAPS, STRAP (TARPS or SPRAT also work)
3. IDEALS, SAILED, LADIES

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The Man in the Picture

A man is looking at a picture on the wall and says, “Brothers and sisters I have none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.”

What is their relationship?

The man in the picture is the onlooker’s son. Since he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, the statement my father’s son can only be himself. A shortened version would be this man’s father is me, making him the father of the man in the picture.

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A Monstrosity

I stand tall and am made of steel,
With baguettes and garlic at my heel.

The hunchback’s house could see my head,
I’m more well known than a certain bread.

I love the colors red, white and blue,
But maybe not as much as you.

I’m a marvel for all to see,
Though to some I am a monstrosity.

What am I?

The Eiffel Tower

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The More There Is The Less You See

The more there is the less you see. What is it?

Darkness

Darkness.  There more darkness there is, the less you can see.

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The Tortoise, Onion and Tomato

What is three-eighths tortoise, two-fifths onion and two-sixths tomato?

Toronto

3/8 tortoise = TOR (the first three letters)
2/5 onion = ON (the first two letters)
2/6 tomato = TO (the first two letters)

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2, 3, 6

What number comes next in this series?

2 3 6 7 1 9 4 5 ___

8. The numbers are in reverse alphabetical order.

Two, three, six, seven, one, nine, four, five, eight.

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False Positive HIV Test

Imagine an HIV test that is 95% accurate (false positive rate of 5%) and around 2% of the tested population is infected with HIV. What is the probability that you actually have HIV when your test comes back positive?

29%

To read more about this, see the False Positive Paradox page on Wikipedia.

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Calm and Cool Among Tumult and Fury

I remain calm and cool among tumult and fury,
I hide treasures and creatures you could hardly fathom,
I will crush those I welcome in deeply,
I am dark yet beautiful.

What am I?

Underwater in the deep ocean. Even when storms brew, the water deep below the surface is calm and cool. Thousands of treasures have been lost in sunken ships, and amazing creatures live at deep depths of the ocean. At extreme depths, the pressure is crushing. It is extremely dark deep in the ocean, yet also beautiful.

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Winning at Wimbledon

As a result of temporary magical powers, you have made it to the Wimbledon finals and are playing Roger Federer for all the marbles. However, your powers cannot last the whole match. What score do you want it to be when they disappear, to maximize your chances of hanging on for a win?

It sounds obvious that you should ask to be ahead two sets to love (it takes 3 out of 5 sets to win
the men’s), and in the third set, ahead 5-0 in games and 40-love in the sixth game. (Probably you
want to be serving, but if your serve is like mine, you might prefer Roger to be serving the sixth
game down 0-40 so that you can pray for a double fault.)

Not so fast! These solutions give you essentially 3 chances to get lucky and win, but you can
get six chances—with three services by you and three by Roger. You still want to be up two sets
to none, but let the game score be 6-6 in the third set and 6-0—in your favor, of course—in the
tiebreaker.

Credit goes to Peter Winkler for creating this.

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