You walk into a room and see a bed. On the bed there are two dogs, four cats, a giraffe, five cows and a duck. There are also three chickens flying above the bed. How many legs are on the floor?
Since all of the animals are on the bed and no other furniture is mentioned in the room, there are six legs on the floor. Four legs from the bed and your own two legs as you stand in the room, amazed that someone managed to get so many animals onto a bed. And the ceiling must be vaulted to fit a giraffe. Also, who’s on cleanup duty?
Three ants are walking in the same direction. The first ant has two ants behind him, the second ant has one in front and one behind, but the third ant has one in front and one behind too. How is this possible?
The ants are in a circle. Lets say the ants are A, B and C. A has has B and C behind him, B has A in front and C behind, and C has B in front and A behind.
King Ferdinand has no immediate living relatives and decides to hold a contest to find a worthy successor when he dies. He gives a seed to every contestant and explains that the person with the healthiest and most beautiful plant will win the throne.
When the final day of the contest arrives, the king finds hundreds of plants of all shapes and sizes. However, he ignores them and awards the throne to a girl holding a pot with only moist dirt.
King Ferdinand was a kind and trusting man and wanted to be sure he found an honest heir. He gave small pebbles to all the contestants, claiming they were seeds. Therefore, any contestant with a plant had switched their “seed” in order to win. Everyone but the girl had been dishonest.
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.
Peppino bought a new hat and Tito asked what day he bought it. Peppino replied, “If yesterday was tomorrow, today would be Tuesday.” On what day did Peppino buy his hat?