1.

Can you order the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 so that they make a number with t
hese characteristics:
it is divisible by 6
and
when the final digit is removed it becomes a 5-figure number divisible by 5
and
when the final digit is removed again it becomes a 4-figure number divisible by
4
and
when this is repeated it becomes a 3-figure number divisible by 3
and
when it is repeated again it becomes a 2-figure number divisible by 2?
Of course when it is repeated for a last time it will naturally be 1-figure numb
er divisible by 1.
2.The oranges all weigh 130 grams.
The lemons are also all the same weight which is less than two thirds of the wei
ght of an orange.
There are twice as many lemons as oranges in the pile.
How many lemons are there and how much does each one weigh?
3.5 pirates of different ages have a treasure of 100 gold coins.
On their ship, they decide to split the coins using this scheme:
The oldest pirate proposes how to share the coins, and all pirates remaining wil
l vote for or against it.
If 50% or more of the pirates vote for it, then the coins will be shared that wa
y. Otherwise, the pirate proposing the scheme will be thrown overboard, and the
process is repeated with the pirates that remain.
Assuming that all 5 pirates are intelligent, rational, greedy, and do not wish t
o die, (and are rather good at math for pirates) what will happen?
(from Adam Wasserman)
What is the degree of the highest exponent of K when you complete the operation:
(K-A)(K-B)(K-C)...(K-Y)(K-Z)
[solution]

(from Ilya Sharapov)

Prove that for any integer n the number [(2+sqrt(3))n] is odd. ([x] is the integ
er part of x)
[solution]
2 kids, John and Jim, are running on an escalator (a moving stairway). John is r
unning three times as fast as Jim, and by the time they are off the escalator, J
ohn has stepped on 75 stairs while Jim has stepped on 50 stairs. How many stairs
does the escalator have? How is its speed related to the speed of the boys? Wer
e they running with or against the escalator?
[solution]

Consider a sequence of n+1 integers a0, a1, ..., an such that ak=#{j|aj=k}. I.e.
, a0 is the number of zeros in the sequence, while a20 in the number of 20-ies i
n it. E.g., the sequence of length 4 [1;2;1;0] satisfies the condition: these is
only one zero there, so a0=1, there are two ones, so a1=2, there is one two, so
a2=1, and there are no threes, so a3=0. Describe all such sequences.
[solution]

(from Bruno Haible)

Prove that for any positive integer n, the finite product
prod (1 <= k <= floor(n/2), 3 + 2 cos (2 k pi / n))
is a rational number.
[solution]

Is it possible to split the unit segment I=[0;1] into two "uniformly same-size"
subsets A and I-A, i.e., so that any subsegment J=[a;b] of I would intersect A a
nd I-A on sets of the same Lebesgue measure? (If you don't know what "Lebesgue m
easure" is, don't worry - it's just a generalization of the ordinary length to "
bad" sets).
[solution]

2 pedestrians have one bike. They travel as follows: the first one rides the bik
e for some time, then drops it and continues walking in the same direction, whil
e the second follows him by foot. Eventually, the second one finds the bike and
rides it until he overtakes the first one. Then he gives the bike to the first o
ne etc. Assuming that they walk with the same speed and bike faster than they wa
lk, what is the speed of their travel?
[solution]

(from Eli Minkov)

Prove that for any quadrilateral with sides a, b, c and d and area S, the follow
ing inequality holds: ac+bd >= S (when does the inequality turns into equality?)
[solution]

Prove that all rectangles circumscribed around a given ellipse have the same dia
gonal. Generalize.
[solution]
N cars, each having a different speed, are going along a 1-lane road, so no pass
ing is possible. Eventually, the cars will accumulate in packets, with the "fast
" cars tailgating the "slow" ones. E.g., if the initial order was 1,5,2,4,3 (1 b
eing the slowest, 5 being the fastest), we will end up with 3 packets: {1}, {5,2
} and {4,3}. Find the average number of packets as a function of N.
[solution]

A lady is locked in a dungeon, while the vile monster went to get firewood. When
the monster is back in 15 min, he will cook and eat the lady. The lock is an ad
vanced coded one: it has 4 oriented (top/bottom) spikes in a drum, arranged in a
square and invisible. The lady can put her two hands into the drum, feel 2 of t
he spikes (adjacent or diagonal), determine their orientation and change it as s
he wishes. If all 4 spikes end up the same direction (up or down), the lock open
s and she can escape. If not, the drum rotates quickly for 1 min (so that she do
es not know which spikes she touched), then stops and she can try again. Can she
escape? How?
[solution]

A parabola y=x2 was drawn, then the coordinate axes were erased. Restore the axe
s with a compass and a ruler.
This problem was given during the Moscow State University Faculty of Mechanics a
nd Mathematics entrance oral mathematics examination to a Jew, a graduate of my
high school, in the Summer 1988 (3 years into "perestrojka"). The guy could not
do the problem in the 15-20 minutes allowed, so his two examiners failed him. He
went home and consulted a friend of his (a specialist on the matters related to
the admission process), and was advised that the problem is unsolvable. So the
poor chap went back to appeal his failing grade (one could appeal on the day of
the exam only). He found his two tormenters and told them that the problem had n
o solution. They said it did. He asked them to provide it. They said "this is an
appeal hearing, not a consultation" (the usual answer to such a question). He s
aid: "do you know the solution?" They said: "yes, of course." He said: "which on
e of you does?" They looked at each other and changed his grade from failing to
passing, so he was admitted to the University.
More problems with a similar history.
[solution]

Draw the tangent to a circle at a given point using only a ruler (no compass).
[solution]

You are at a computer store which sells 3 computers: the Japanese one, which alw
ays answers any Yes-or-No question correctly, the Chinese one, which always answ
ers any Yes-or-No question IN-correctly, and a Russian one, which sometimes tell
s the truth and sometimes lies - you never know. You can ask one Yes-or-No quest
ion to any one of the three computers, after which you must buy any one of the t
hree. You don't want the Russian computer, but each of the other two is okay. Wh
at can you do?
[solution]
You have 12 coins, one of which is counterfeit
rs - you do not know that), and a scales which
ny two sets of coins. You may use the scales 3
unterfeit and whether it is heavier or lighter
[solution]
(lighter or heavier than the othe
lets you compare the weights of a
times. Determine which coin is co
than the true ones.

Given a plane in the 3D space and 2 points on the different sides of the plane,
find the spere passing through the two points which minimizes the area of its in
tersection with the plane.
[solution]

A family of 4 is trying to cross a bridge at night. One needs a flashlight to cr

oss the bridge, and only two persons can cross the bridge at the same time, movi
ng at the speed of the slower of the two. Father crosses the bridge in 1 minute,
Mother in 2 minutes, Child in 5 minutes and Granny in 10. What is the fastest w
ay for them to cross the bridge?
The obvious solution is for F to always carry the flashlight back, i.e., FM+F+FC
+F+FG which means 19 minutes (the notation means: first, F and M cross, then F c
arries the flashlight back, third, F and C cross together, fourth, F carries the
flashlight back again, finally, F and G cross). Can you do faster?
It is alleged that this is the standard problem given at an interview at Microso
ft.
[solution]

You have two 4-minute fuses. They are not homogeneous, i.e., one half will not b
urn for 2 minutes. Can you measure a 3 minute interval with these 2 cords?
[solution]

You are on top of a 40 meter high building, you have a 30 meter long rope, and y
ou may not jump or fall. There are no windows or doors, the only way down is alo
ng the flat wall with a single solid ring at midpoint (20 meters from both roof
and ground), to which you can attach your rope. You can cut and tie the rope as
much as you like, disregard the length of the rope you spend on knots. Can you g
et to the ground?
[solution]

You have to send a diamond over the mail. The post office sells boxes of all siz
es equipped with multiple latches, as well as locks and keys (you can duplicate
keys, and you can put more then one lock on the same box). The boxes cannot be b
roken, so the recepient must have a key to open the box. A key cannot be sent ou
tside of a box, and an unlocked box cannot be mailed. How can you send the valua
ble diamond?
[solution]
The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and tells whether you are quali
fied to be a "manager".
How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
The Lion King is hosting an animal conference, all the animals attend except one
. Which animal does not attend?
There is a river you must cross, but it is inhabited by crocodiles, and there is
no bridge. How do you manage it?
[solution]

4 slugs are moving along 4 straight lines at constant speeds. None of the lines
are parallel and no 3 of them pass through the same point (so called general con
figuration). Slug A meets B where their respective lines intersect. The same hol
ds for A and C, A and D, B and C, B and D. Prove that C and D also meet where th
eir lines intersect.
[solution]

(from Tanya Khovanova)

Two people are playing heads and tails, one casts n coins, the other - n+1. What
is the probability that the second one will have (strictly) more heads than the
first one?
[solution]

A row of freshly recruited soldiers is standing before a sergeant who gives a co

mmand to turn right. Some soldiers turn right, some left, and then they try to c
orrect their mistake: if a soldier sees the face of his neighbor, he assumes tha
t he turned the wrong way and turns around. Will the situation stabilize and how
? How long will it take?
[solution]

(from Boris Korsunsky)

What is acceleration (or, if you prefer, deceleration) of a tennis ball, dropped
from a significant height, right after it bounced from the pavement?
[solution]

[added: 2000-07-05] (from Raffaello Giulietti)

There are two mathematicians in a room. The product of two integers >=2 is given
to the first mathematician, and the sum of the same two integers is given to th
e second one. Hence, the first mathematician only knows the product and the seco
nd only knows the sum of the two integers. However, both are aware that the firs
t knows the product and the second knows the sum of the two integers.
The first mathematician is asked whether he can determine the two numbers, and h
e answers no.
The second mathematician is then asked whether he can determine the two numbers,
and he too answers no.
The first mathematician is then asked once again whether he can determine the tw
o numbers and this time the answer is yes!
What are these two numbers?
[solution]

[added: 2000-11-26] A couple is determined to have at least one son and at least
one daughter. What is the expected total number of children they will have?
[solution]

[added: 2001-09-28]
You have two (2) identical glass balls and a 100-storey building. If you drop su
ch a ball from the a certain floor, it might break (obviously, if it breaks when
dropped from the ith floor, it will also break when dropped from all floors abo
ve it. You have to find such a floor that the balls do not break when dropped fr
om the floors below it, but do break when dropped from it and floors above it. Y
ou may expend both balls. What is the minimum number of drops you will have to m
ake?
[solution]

[added: 2001-10-02] (from Sergey Kagan)

There are 1000 lockers (all locked) and 1000 kids, who lock the unlocked lockers
and unlock the locked ones. The first kid touches (i.e., opens) each locker. Th
e second kid touches (i.e., locks) all even lockers. The third kid touches (i.e.
, opens the locked ones and closes the unlocked ones) all lockers with number di
visible by 3. The fourth kid touches the lockers number 4, 8, 12 etc. After the
1000th kid locks (or unlocks, if it was locked already) the locker number 1000,
how many lockers are open?
[solution]

[added: 2001-11-20]
3 dark corridors (of the same length) meet in a small room. A cop is trying to c
atch a bum there. The cop runs with speed 2 meters per secons, while the bum can
only make one meter per second. The cop has a weak flashlight - it lights only
1 meter of space. What is the maximum corridor length for which the cop has a wi
nning strategy against the bum? E.g. if all the corridors are just 1 meter, then
the cop will stand in the room, light the corridors one after another and catch
the bum.
[solution]

[added: 2002-05-23] (from Bruno Haible)

For all integers numbers m,
((m - 1) & (- m - 1)) + 1 == m & -m
[solution]
[added: 2002-07-02] (from TAOCP)
Let X and Y be two independent, identically distributed random variables with ze
ro mean, which are more likely to be positive than to be negative. Obviously, th
eir sum X+Y also has zero mean, but is it necessarily more likely to be positive
than to be negative?
[solution]

[added: 2002-07-02] (from Mikhail Khmelnitskiy)

A stupid king decided to eliminate his Academy of Sciences (as a cost-saving mea
sure, after he slashed taxes), and decided to do it as follows: all the scholars
are put in one line, one after another, so that the first one sees everyone ahe
ad of him (second through last), while the second sees the third scholar through
the last one, and the last one does not see anyone. Then he puts a dunce cap, e
ither red or blue, on each scholar's head, so that the first one knows the cap c
olors of rest of them, but not his own, the second knows the cap colors of the t
hird through the last one etc. Finally, each scholar, starting with the first on
e, is asked what color his cap is, and if his guess (which all the other scholar
s hear) is wrong, he is executed. The scholars may agree in advance on what to d
o.
What should the scholars do to minimize the casualties?
E.g., they can agree that each odd-numbered scholar will say the cap color of th
e next one, so that the even-numbered scholars will survive. Can they do better
than that?
[solution]

[added: 2005-07-26] (from Tanya Khovanova)

A bum makes 1 cigarette out of 4 cigarette butts. He has 24 cigarette butts. How
many cigarettes can he smoke?
[solution]

[added: 2005-08-10]
An ellipse without any markings (no center, no foci, no axes) is drawn. Restore
the center, foci and axes and draw the tangent to the ellipse though a given poi
nt on (or off) it using a compass and a ruler.
[solution]

[added: 2005-09-26]
An urn contains N black and white balls, and we do not know how many balls of ea
ch kind there is: Pr(#white=K)=1/(N+1) for K=0,...,N. The urn was sampled (with
replacement) M times and every time the ball was while. What is the posterior pr
obability that all balls in the urn are white?
[solution]
[added: 2006-01-21]
Placed on a 1 meter long horizontal bar, an ant moving with a speed of 1 m/s, wi
ll fall off one end in at most 1 second. When two ants run into each other, they
both turn around and keep running with the same speed. Suppose 1000 ants are pl
aced on the bar arbitrarily and start running in arbitrary directions. How long
will it take them all to fall off the bar ends? Assume that ants have zero size.
[solution]

[added: 2009-06-12]
This is a ramification of a previous problem.
Suppose there are countably infinitely many scolars, and all of them can see all
the others (except for oneself). They are asked all at once, i.e., they do not
hear the answers of the others. They win if only finitely many of them are wrong
(alternatively: if either all are wrong or all are correct).
Prove that they have a winning strategy.
[solution]

[added: 2009-12-29] (from jourfixe)

An equilateral triangle is inscribed in a right triangle so that one of its side
s is parallel to the hypotenuse. Then everything except for the hypotenuse and t
he vertexes on it are erased.
Restore the full picture using a compass and a ruler.
[solution]

Notes and Answers to the Puzzles

[problem] The polynomial has a term (K-K), so it's 0. *grin*

[problem] (2-sqrt(3)) = 1/(2+sqrt(3)) < 1, and

(2+sqrt(3))n + (2-sqrt(3))n = 2 * sum (k=0..[(n+1)/2]; Binomial(n,2k)*2(n-2k)*3k
)
-- even!

[problem] The answers are: the length is 100 stairs, the boys were running along
the escalator which was moving with the same speed as the slow boy. Solution: i
n the time the fast boy stepped on 75 stairs, the slow one could step on only 25
, so, since he stepped on 50, he spent twice as much time on the escalator as th
e fast one. Therefore his speed relative to the ground was half that of the fast
boy, therefore the escalator's speed was the same as the speed of the slow boy,
and he counted exactly half the stairs. Another way is to use algebra (omitted)
.

[problem] The answer: The only other examples are [2;0;2;0] and [2;1;2;0;0], as
well as the family [n-3;2;1;0...0;1;0;0;0]. You might find useful the following
relationships: a0+a1+...+an=n+1 and a1+2a2+3a3+...+nan=n+1.

[problem] This product is actually a Fibonacci number. You can replace "3" with
another integer and still get an integer product, with a similar recurrent relat
ionship. As a function of this number, this polynomial is closely related to the
Tchebyshev polynomials.

[problem] It is easy to prove that such a set would not be measurable: its indic
ator function has an integral of 1/2 of the measure of the set it was integrated
on, thus it is 1/2 almost everywhere - a contradiction, It is also easy to cons
truct such a set using so called "nonstandard analysis": just fix an infinite nu
mber Z and take all numbers that have 1 in the Z-th place in their binary repres
entation. This shows how drastically different nonstandard analysis is: to const
ruct a non-measurable set, the conventional analysis needs the full power of Zer
melo's AC (Axiom of Choice).

[problem] The answer is: the harmonic average (the reciprocal of the arithmetic
average of the reciprocals) of the walk and bike speeds. This is because both wa
lk and bike equal distances.

[problem] The hard way is to recall that, if l and m are diagonals, ac+bd >= lm
(equality iff the quadrilateral is inscribed in a circle) and lm >= S (equality
iff the diagonals are orthogonal).
The easy way is to note that ab+cd >= S and flip one of the triangles into which
the quadrilateral is split by its diagonal.

[problem] An n-dimensional ellipsoid is a set {x|(Ax,x)=1} for some positive ope

rator A. A circumscribed parallelepiped determines a coordinate system ei, in wh
ich A can be represented by a (symmetric) matrix. The diagonal is sqrt(sum((vi,e
i)2, i=1..n)), where vi=A-1ei/ sqrt((A-1ei,ei)) is the i-th point tangency of th
e parallelepiped and the ellipsoid. This means that the diagonal is sqrt(Trace(A
-1)) and thus is independent on the coordinate system.

[problem] Obviously, for N=1 the answer is 1. When we add one car which is faste
r than anything we had before, there is one in N chance that it will be in front
of the rest and this is the only way the number of packets can be increased. Th
us MN=MN-1+1/N where MN is the N-the mean. Therefore MN=1+1/2+1/3+...+1/N (which
 is approximately ln(N)).

[problem] Yes, and she will have an 11-minute lead on the monster!
The steps are like this:
Turn up two diagonal spikes.
Turn up two adjacent spikes. Now she is either free or she has 3 up spikes and 1
down spike.
Grab two diagonal spikes. If they are opposite, turn the down one up and she is
free, otherwise reverse one of them - now two adjacent are up and two are down.
Grab two adjacent spikes. If they are co-oriented, reverse both of them and she
is free, otherwise reverse both of them anyway - now two diagonal spikes are up
and two other diagonal spikes are down.
Reverse two diagonal spikes - she is free now!

[problem] Parabola has a nice property: the midpoints of all parallel sections l
ie on a line parallel to the axis. So take any two parallel sections, draw a lin
e through their midpoints, then a section perpendicular to it, then the midpoint
perpendicular to that last section will be the y axis, while the line perpendic
ular to it passing through its intersection with the parabola will be the x axis
.
Note that the property in question was not part of the standard secondary school
curriculum in the USSR.

[problem] The circle is S, the point is A. Choose 4 arbitrary points on S: B, C,

E, and E. Draw the 5-pointed star through these 5 points. Let F be the intersec
tion of AD and CE and G be the intersection of AC and BD. Let H be the intersect
ion of EB ("shoulders") and FG ("waist"). Then AH is tangent to S.
Proof: as usual with ruler-only constructions, we can use an arbitrary projectiv
e transformation to simplify the picture. Move the tangent t to S at A to be the
line at infinity. Now S is a parabola and a simple algebraic exercise will show
that EB ("shoulders") and FG ("waist") are parallel, i.e., that they intersect
t at the same point.

[problem] You ask the computer number 1: "what would you answer me if I were to
ask you whether the computer number 2 is Russian?". If you are talking to an Ori
ental computer (Japanese or Chinese), you get the correct answer (the Japanese w
ould tell you the truth, while the Chinese would lie about its false answer, thu
s giving you the truth - this is the standard double negation trick), so if the
answer is "yes", you buy the computer number 3, and if the answer is "no", you b
uy the computer number 2. If you are talking to a Russian computer, it does not
matter which one of the computers 2 and 3 to buy, so you can act as if the answe
r were truthful too.
There are 2 ideas here:
you are not going to buy the computer you are talking to
you ask a double negation question to nix the difference between the Japanese an
d the Chinese computers
From Charles Floyd: An alternative to the double negation question for this spec
ific problem is to ask the computer number 1: "is the computer number 2 more lik
ely to tell me the truth than the computer number 3?" and then, if the answer is
 "yes" buy the computer number 3, and if the answer is "no" buy the computer num
ber 2:
if you are talking to the Japanese computer, then the "less truthful" of the rem
aining 2 computers is the Chinese one, and that is what you want
if you are talking to the Chinese computer, then the "less truthful" of the rema
ining 2 computers is the Russian one, but the Chinese computer will lie and tell
you that the Japanese is "less truthful"
if you are talking to the Russian computer, it does not matter which of the othe
r two computers to buy

[problem] Separate the 12 coins into 3 sets of 4 coins each and compare 2 of the
sets. If they are the same, the counterfeit coin is in the last group of 4 and
we compare 3 coins from this last group with any 3 coins from the other 8 genuin
e ones. If they weigh the same, the counterfeit is the 4th and we still have one
more weighting to find out whether the counterfeit is lighter or heavier than t
he genuine one. If they weigh different, we know whether the counterfeit is ligh
ter or heavier than the genuine one and we have 3 coins, one of which is counter
feit. We compare two of them and are done.
If the first weighting revealed a discrepancy, we have 3 sets of coins, 4 each:
light, heavy and genuine. Compare 2 groups: llh and llh. If they are the same, w
e compare the two remaining h's with each other and the heavier is counterfeit.
If one of them, say the first one, is heavier, we have to choose between the h f
rom the first group and the two l's from the second group, so we compare the two
l's: is they are the same, the h is counterfeit, otherwise the lighter of them
is counterfeit.
Note that each weighting gives us 1 trit of information, so 3 weightings should
allow us to distinguish between 27 variants. Indeed, if we knew whether the coun
terfeit coin is lighter or heavier, we could have detected it among 27 coins. Th
e way the problem us stated though, we could only distinguish between 24 variant
s (1 out of 12 coins times 1 out of 2 heavies/lighter variants).

[problem] First of all, projecting the center of the sphere on the plane perpend
icular to our plane and passing through the two points, we reduce the area, so t
he problem is thus reduced to a planar one: given two points and a line separati
ng them in a plane, find the circle through these two points with the shortest i
ntersection with the line.
Let the line be l, points A and B and the line AB intersects the line l at the p
oint K, while the circle intersects the line l at points X and Y. Then, XK*KY =
AK*KB = constant therefore XY = XK+KY is minimal when XK = KY, i.e., the center
of the circle is the intersection of the midpoint perpendicular to AB and the pe
rpendicular to l at K.

[problem] The trick is to send the slowest people together: FM+F+CG+M+FM is 17 m

inutes.

[problem] Light the first fuse from both ends and the second one from one end. T
wo minutes later the first fuse will be spent and the second one will still have
2 minutes left in it. Light it from the other (not-yet-burning) end. One minute
 later it will be spent. Together it makes three minutes.

[problem] Cut the rope in two pieces - 10m and 20m, tie a bowline at one end of
the short piece, attach the other end to the roof, slide the long piece through
the noose and fold it in half. Now you have a 20m composite rope, enough to get
to the midpoint. Attach one end of the long piece to the ring and slide it out o
f the noose. Now you have a 20m rope to go 20m down.

[problem] You put the diamond in the box, lock it and mail it. The recipient loc
ks the box he got from you with his own lock and sends it back to you. You remov
e your lock and mail the box again.
This problem is related to the private key encryption when the private keys comm
ute.
Assuming the locks are "padlocks", there is another solution: lock an empty box,
send it to the recipient, he adds his lock so that it goes through one half of
a latch and sends it back, you open the box (it is locked only with your lock),
put the diamond in and lock it, putting your lock through the other latch and yo
ur recipient's lock (so that the box is locked with the the chain of two locks),
then send it to the recipient, who opens the his lock and thus unlocks the box.

[problem]
Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door. [This question tes
ts whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.]
Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the d
oor. [This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions
.]
The Elephant - he is in the refrigerator. [This tests your memory.]
You swim across - all the Crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting! [This tes
ts whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.]
According to Andersen Consulting World Wide, around 90% of the professionals the
y tested got all questions wrong. But many pre-schoolers got several correct ans
wers. Andersen Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most
management consultants have the brains of a four year old.

[problem] If two slugs meet at the same point, the line going through them alway
s stays parallel to a certain direction. Therefore, since A and B meet, we see t
hat the lines AC and BC must coincide (similarly, AD=BD), thus all 4 slugs remai
n on the same line at all times.
Another solution (by Tanya Khovanova) is to consider the 3-dimensional space-tim
e, where the trajectories (world lines) of the slugs are straight lines. The con
dition that two slugs meet means that the corresponding world lines intersect, w
hich implies that all 4 lines lie in the same plane, thus they all intersect (si
nce their projections on the spatial dimensions intersect).

[problem] The answer is 1/2. When they cast n coins each, the result can be
1st has more heads - this is unfavorable regardless of the last coin of the 2nd
person
2nd has more heads - this is favorable regardless of the last coin of the 2nd pe
rson
1st and 2nd have the same number of heads - then there is a 50:50 chance that th
e last coin of the 2nd person would make the result favorable.
Since [1] and [2] have equal probabilities and [3] is split into two equal-proba
bility groups, we observe that the two events, that the 2nd person has (strictly
) more heads than the 1st one and that the 1st one has at least as many heads as
the 2nd one, have equal probabilities.

[problem] As soon as the end soldiers turn outside, they will never turn again,
thus induction shows that the situation will stabilize with the left-most k sold
iers looking left and the right-most l soldiers looking right. It will take at m
ost N-1 (N being the the number of soldiers) turns to stabilize, the maximum bei
ng achieved in the N-1 cases when some left-most soldiers are looking right and
the rest are looking left. The average number of turns divided by N seems to be
converging to about 0.6 from below.
Since whenever two soldiers look at each other's faces they turn around, the num
ber of soldiers looking left and right is constant, so the number of soldiers wh
o will be finally looking left (right) is the same as the number of soldiers who
were looking left (right) initially.
If we encode a left-looking soldier as 1 and a right-looking soldier as 0, this
is a parallel sorting routine, where at each step the neighboring unordered digi
ts are transposed.

[problem] The answer is 2g (g=9.81m/sec2 is the acceleration of the free fall).

Since the ball was dropped from a significant height, it was moving at a constan
t speed when it hit the ground, i.e., the resistance of the air at that speed wa
s equal to the free fall acceleration. After bouncing the ball was moving in the
opposite direction with the same speed, so the air resistance was the same but
acting in the opposite direction.

[problem] The answer is 2 and 6. The smallest number with two permissible produc
t decompositions is 12=2*6=3*4. If the second mathematician had 7=3+4, he would
have to be deciding between 3,4 and 2,5. Since 10=2*5 has only one product decom
position, it is out, so the second mathematician would have known the answer (3,
4) after the first mathematician answered no the first time. Therefore it could
not have been 7=3+4. If the numbers were larger, the negative answer of the seco
nd mathematician would not have given enough information to the first.

[problem] The answer is 3. See the details.

[problem] The answer is 14. The strategy is to drop the first ball from the K-th
story; if it breaks, you know that the answer is between 1 and K and you have t
o use at most K-1 drops to find it out, thus K drops will be used. It the first
ball does not break when dropped from the K-th floor, you drop it again from the
(K+K-1)-th floor, then, if it breaks, you find the critical floor between K+1 a
nd K+K-1 in K-2 drops, i.e., again, the total number of drops is K. Continue unt
il you get above the top floor or you drop the first ball K times. Therefore, yo
u have to choose K so that the total number of floors covered in K steps, which
is K(k+1)/2, is greater that 100 (the total size of the building). 13*14/2=91 --
too small. 14*15/2=105 -- enough.
Obviously, the only possible strategy is to drop the first ball with some "large
" intervals and then drop the last ball with interval 1 inside the "large" inter
val set by the two last drops of the first ball. If you claim that you can finis
h in 13 drops, you cannot drop the first ball for the first time from a floor ab
ove 13, since then you won't be able to detect the critical floor 13. The next c
annot be above 25 etc.

[problem] The answer is 31. The locker number i is accessed as many times as it
has divisors. E.g., locker number 6 is accessed 4 times - by the first, second,
third and sixth kids. Thus the lockers which will be open are those whose number
has an odd number of divisors, i.e., full squares (since we have an involution
on the set of divisors of i, namely, j --> i/j whose fixed point, if any, is the
square root of i). The number of full squares less than 1000 is (isqrt 1000) wh
ich is 31.

[problem] The answer is 5 meters. The cop can walk one of the corridors to the e
nd and ensure that the bum is not there. Now he has two corridors - A and B - an
d he knows that the bum is farther than a0=1 in A and farther than b0=1 in B. Th
e cop runs x0=b0+1=2 meters into A and back in x0 seconds. Now a1 = (x0+1) - x0/
2 = x0/2 + 1 = 2 (the cop inspected x0+1 meters of the corridor A, but in x0/2 s
econds that he ran back, the bum could reclaim x0/2 meters). In the corridor B,
the bum could make it to the room in b seconds and run into the "clean" corridor
for another 1 meter, but the cop is already in the room and he will see the bum
, so he can be sure that the bum is still in B, so b1=1. Next, the cop runs x1=a
1+1=3 meters into B and back in x1 seconds. Now b2 = x1/2 + 1 = 5/2 and a2 = 1.
Thus xn+1 = an+1 + 1 = (xn/2 + 1) + 1 = xn/2 + 2 which converges to 4, thus the
maximum corridor length is 5.

[problem] Both sides are equal to the largest power of 2 which divides m, call i
t M=M(m)=2r(m) where r(m) is the ruler function. To see this, write m in binary,
then it ends with a 1 and some (possibly none) 0s (this 1 and these 0s are exac
tly the binary representation of M). -m, written in Two's Complement, is the sam
e sequence inverted (i.e., 1 is replaced with 0 and 0 with 1) and 1 added, i.e.,
it ends with the same number of 0s as m (which should not be too surprising sin
ce, obviously, M(-m)=M(m)), thus, when you take m & -m, you get M. Similar logic
works for the left hand side as well.

[problem] The answer is no. Consider the random variables that take the positive
value 1/p with probability p, and the negative value -1/q with probability q=1-
p (thus the mean is 0). Since we know that the variables are more likely to be p
ositive than to be negative, we know that p > 1/2 > q, thus 1/p - 1/q < 0. There
fore, for the sum X+Y to be positive, both variables must be positive, X=Y=1/p,
which happens with probability p*p, which does not have to be bigger that 1/2 wh
en p > 1/2. E.g., when p=2/3, P(X+Y>0) = 4/9 < 1/2.

[problem] They can save all but one, and the one they cannot save, the first one
, cannot be saved with any tricks since he has no information at all. The protoc
ol is like this: the first scholar counts the red caps he sees and says red if t
his number is odd, and blue if it is even. He meets his fate, but the rest of th
e scholars are saved: each one of them counts the red caps ahead of him, adds to
the number of times the previous scholars (including the first one!) said red,
and, if the number is odd, he says red himself, otherwise he says blue.

[problem] The problem says smoke, not make!

He can make 6 cigarettes out of 24 cigarette butts,
then smoke them and have 6 cigarette butts;
then make 1 cigarette out of 4 butts and save 2 butts;
then smoke it and have 1+2=3 butts;
then borrow 1 butt from a fellow bum, make a cigarette, smoke it, and return the
butt
Answer: 8 cigarettes.

[problem]
Similar to parabola, the midpoints of all parallel sections lie on a line ("cent
erline for these sections") though the center, so by choosing two non-parallel s
ections, we can get the center O at the intersection of their centerlines.
A suitable circle centered at the center intersects ellipse at 4 points that det
ermine the directions of the axes.
Take a non-axis section, its centerline, and a line parallel to the section thro
ugh the intersection I of the section with the ellipse (it will be tangent to th
e ellipse at I). Let foci be A and B. For the triangle ABI we have the median IO
, the bisector at I (the normal to the tangent at I), and the line AB (the longe
r axis). The circumscribed circle for the triangle ABI must pass through the poi
nt X of the intersection of the bisector with the shorter axis and though the po
int J symmetric to I wrt the shorter axis (because the circle's center lies on t
he center perpendicular to the side AB that is the shorter axis). The circumscri
bed circle for the triangle IJX thus intersects the longer axis at the foci A an
d B.
The tangent at an arbitrary point Z on the ellipse is the normal to the bisector
of the angle AZB.
If Z is not on the ellipse, consider all the sections XY of the ellipse through
Z. The locus of points T between X and Y such that the distance ZT is the harmon
ic average of the distances ZX and ZY is the circle, that intersects the ellipse
at two points A and B, and the lines ZA and ZB are tangent to the ellipse. This
is because the cross-ratio [X,T,Y,Z]=-1 and if we project Z to infinity (this p
reserves cross-ratio), T is projected to the midpoint between images of X and Y
and the circle above is projected onto the centerline.

[problem]
This is a simple application of the Bayes formula:
Pr(Urn has N White|Sample has M White) = Pr(Sample has M white|Urn has N White)
/ Pr(Sample has M white).
The numerator is 1, the denominator is sum(k=0,...,N-1;(1-k/N)M) so
Pr=NM / sum(k=1,...,N;kM).
The denominator is
N(M+1)/(M+1) + NM/2 + ...
so, approximately,
Pr=2(M+1)/(2N+M+1).
Thus, if M=N large, this probability is approximately 2/3.
[problem]
Since the ants are indistinguishable for our purposes, their actual behavior whe
n they bump into each other (turn around) is equivalent to the ants passing thro
ugh each other, i.e., we can assume that they run independently. This means that
in at most one second all ants will be gone.

[problem]
The essential component of the proof is the Axiom of Choice.
Placement of caps correspond to infinite sequences of 1s and 0s. We call two suc
h sequences similar if they differ only in a finite number of places. This is an
equivalence relationship, so we can factor the set of sequences by it and find
a representative element in each. Since each scholar sees all caps but his own,
he knows the equivalence class and can make the guess prescribed by the selected
representative element.
The alternative problem: there is a homomorphism from the infinite sequences of
0s and 1s onto Z2 which extends the notion of parity. The scholars assume that t
he image of the sequence is (say) 0 and guess their own hat accordingly.

[problem]
Construction: given hypotenuse AB and a point C on it.
Construct a circle on diameter AB.
Draw rays CD and CE at angles PI/3 (60 degrees) between them and AB.
Let AB=CD=CE, then AD||BE and DE=AB.
Draw the ray CF||AD||BE to the intersection F with the circle - that is the 3rd
vertex of the right triangle.
Points G=intersect(AF,CD) and H=intersect(BF,CE) are the missing vertexes of the
equilateral triangle.
To complete the proof, we need to show that GH||AB, which follows from AG:GF=BH:
HF. To prove that, we need to apply...
Lemma: In a triangle ABC with point D on BC, BD:CD=(AB*sin(BAD)):(AC*sin(CAD))
Proof: Compare areas of triangles ADB and ADC.
... to triangles AFC, BFC, DEC.