Jim was canoeing on a lake when a sudden thunderstorm blew in tipped his boat. He swam to a rocky island about a mile from his family’s cottage and found a small, abandoned shack. Inside was an old kerosene lamp and a few matches. All the wood on the island was too damp to burn and the lamp was his only means of signaling for help but it only held an inch of kerosene, not enough to reach its short wick. How did he get the lamp burning to summon help?
Knowing kerosene and water wouldn’t mix and kerosene is less dense than water, he dipped the lamp in the lake and filled it with enough water so the kerosene rose to the top to cover the wick. The lamp was still burning an hour later when a motorboat rescued him.
A merchant has 21 sacks of grain: 7 full, 7 half-full and 7 empty. He wants to divide them equally among his three sons. How can he do this, without transferring any grain between sacks, so each son has the same quantity of grain and number of sacks?
A man is leaving on a business trip and stops by his office on the way to the airport. The night watchman stops him and says, “Sir, don’t take that flight. I had a dream last night that your plane would crash and everyone would die!” The business man cancels his trip and sure enough, the plane crashes, killing all the passengers. The man gives his watchman a $10,000 reward for saving his life, then fires him. Why?
Stars awash in a sheen of light It calls out loud in vile delight. Listeners endure in fright. Vicious brute that reigns at night, Evil whelped of heinous bite, Renewed by wax, it regains might. A leading way to slay the beast, Get the hidden weapon thus released.
What is this describing? Hint: The first letter of each line has a clue
Putting the information in a table makes it easier to solve. We’ll use A for Angie, B for Brenda, T for truth and F (false) for lying.
S
M
T
W
Th
F
S
A
T
F
F
F
T
T
T
B
T
T
T
T
F
F
F
To begin with, there aren’t any days where both of them told the truth and lied the day before, so we know one of them must be lying.
So we have two options, either Angel is lying or Brenda is.
Option 1. Angel is lying.
In order for this to be the case, she needs to be lying today and telling the truth yesterday, so we need two days in a row with T F. And if Brenda is telling the truth, she would need two days with F T. That means we’re looking for two days that have
Angie: T F
Brenda: F T
Option 2. Brenda is lying.
This is just the reverse of the above, so we need to find:
Angie: F T
Brenda: T F
The only day that matches either of the two options is Thursday, and it’s option 2. Brenda is the liar.