I turn polar bears white and I will make you cry. I make guys have to pee and girls comb their hair. I make celebrities look stupid and normal people look like celebrities. I turn pancakes brown and make your champagne bubble. If you squeeze me, I’ll pop. If you look at me, you’ll pop. Can you guess the riddle?
The answer to this admittedly lame riddle is, “No.” The reason is that the question at the very end asks if you can guess the riddle and there is nothing that satisfies all of the riddles’ requirements.
Some say that pressure is the answer, but they can’t explain how it turns polar bears white or pancakes brown. Nothing turns polar bears white, any more than something turns a snowflake white and heat makes pancakes brown, not pressure.
A lie. Lies are told, can make people crazy with rage, and most people don’t like to have lies told to them. Lies can’t be harmful though. :) (See what I did there?)
You’re waiting to board your flight at the airport with 99 other passengers, each with an assigned seat. All but one of the passengers will gladly sit in their designated seat. The only exception is Randall, a scoundrel who refuses to follow the rules. When he boards, he will choose a random, unoccupied seat.
If a rule-following passenger finds someone in their spot, they will choose another one at a random from the remaining unoccupied seats.
What is the probability that the last person to board the plane will sit in their proper seat?
The randomness stops as soon as someone else sits in Randall’s assigned seat. The chances of this happening range from 1 out of 99 to 1 out of 1 (when only one seat remains).
Thus, the probability of the last person sitting in their own seat can be calculated as 1/99 plus the sum of 2 to 98 of the formula 1 / n × (n + 1), which works out to 0.5, or 50%.
So there’s a 50% chance the last passenger will sit in their own seat thanks to Randall for screwing up order and procedure when boarding an aircraft.
Everly and I were playing on the merry-go-round at the local park. It was very large and we stood on opposite sides. As we spun the merry-go-round counter-clockwise, I threw a ball to Everly. Did the ball go to Everly, to the right or left of them?