Ida puts her coffee into the microwave, as she does every morning, for exactly two minutes. When the microwave goes off, she opens the door, but then closes the door again and sets the microwave for two more seconds. What good would two more seconds be?
A man is found dead at the end of an alley. A detective who enters the scene sees the letter X and immediately knows who killed the man and why. What did the detective conclude?
The alley is a bowling alley. The man who was killed was a pin spotter (an old profession where they would reset the pins by hand). The X was the marking on the score sheet for a strike. The detective saw the letter X and knew that the person bowled last, got a strike, and was due to bowl again. But they bowled before the pin spotter could get out of the way.
The answer to each clue is a single, 100-point word, or a word whose letters add up to 100, with a = 1, b = 2. I wrote this word value calculator so you can easily check your guesses.
i. Peanut butter tastes like this.
ii. The hat a Dad wears.
iii. To fire a chef,
iv. A smart timepiece.
v. Figured it out again.
vi. Where a kid can sleep.
vii. The magical fruit leaves you doing this.
viii. Betrayed for this much silver.
ix. A baked good that is height challenged.
x. A sticky way to neaten your hair.
A married couple is traveling by bus on dangerous mountain roads. Midway through their journey the bus stops for snacks and a restroom break. The couple is enjoying the postcards in the store when the bus driver curtly tells them it’s past time to leave. Fifteen minutes after, the bus is hit by a mud slide and two people are killed. The couple blames themselves for the deaths. Why?
They blame themselves because they caused the bus to be late. If they had been on time, the bus would have already passed the location of the mud slide.
U2 has a concert that starts in 17 minutes and they must all cross a bridge to get there. All four men begin on the same side of the bridge. You must help them across to the other side. It is night. There is one flashlight. A maximum of two people can cross at one time. Any party who crosses, either 1 or 2 people, must have the flashlight with them.
The flashlight must be walked back and forth. It cannot be thrown and other tricks like that are not needed to solve the problem. The solution is simply a matter of allocating resources in a certain order. Each band member walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the rate of the slower man’s pace:
Bono: 1 minute to cross
Edge: 2 minutes to cross
Adam: 5 minutes to cross
Larry: 10 minutes to cross
For example: if Bono and Larry walk across first, 10 minutes have elapsed when they get to the other side of the bridge. If Larry then returns with the flashlight, a total of 20 minutes have passed and you have failed the mission.
This is one of my favorite brain teasers and I want to give you the satisfaction of figuring it out on your own. If you’re having a hard time, here’s a hint: There is a valid answer that doesn’t require tricks like throwing the flashlight or shining it backwards or having some other means of moving the flashlight.
There’s an assumption people often make that keeps them from solving this. Two members cross the bridge each time, but neither one of the two who crossed necessarily need to return. Think about how that would be possible. If you’re still stuck, use objects to simulate their movements. Use whatever you have laying around – pens, paper, erasers – and move them back and forth. Good luck!