The moon. The moon has a long association with being crazy (lunar being the basis for a lunatic). It shines at night, when you go to bed. The moon’s gravity creates the ocean tides and when the moon is different colors it can mean bad weather is on its way.
A worm. Worms don’t have eyes or ears, but they can sense light and their bodies can detect vibrations in the ground. Fishers use worms as bait and the term bookwork is used for someone who loves to read.
You are given eight coins and told that one of them is counterfeit. The counterfeit one is slightly heavier than the other seven. Otherwise, the coins look identical. Using a simple balance scale, how can you determine which coin is counterfeit using the scale only twice?
First weigh three coins against three others. If the weights are equal, weigh the remaining two against each other. The heavier one is the counterfeit. If one of the groups of three is heavier, weigh two of those coins against each other. If one is heavier, it’s the counterfeit. If they’re equal weight, the third coin is the counterfeit.
Second. Second place is next to winning. Seconds, the measure of time, pass quickly. Seconding a motion is requested by the chair of the body in Parliament. And the second place finisher in many sporting events such as the Olympics is awarded the silver medal.
And as for why the unit of time is called a second, it goes back to the days of Ptolemy. A second of time is the second small part, or pars minuta secunda, of an hour. (Thanks to Tim J for researching it).
A secret lair has a code to only allow members to enter. The person wanting to enter says a random number, then is told a number in response. In order to enter they must say the correct third number. Here are sequences that allowed entrance.
Five because s-e-v-e-n has 5 letters. The first number can be anything, the second number is the number of letters in the first number, and the third number is the number of letters in the second number.