- Answer either or both: If you could spend $1 a minute, how long would it take you to spend $1,000,000? If you spent a $20 bill a minute, how long would it take to spend one billion dollars?
- A bottle of old brandy costs $45. The brandy costs $40 more than the empty bottle. What is the cost of the empty bottle?
- James says “I have as many brothers as sisters.” His sister says, “I have twice as many brothers as sisters.” How many brothers and sisters are in this family?
- How many 3-digit numbers have all odd digits? Is the answer the same for all even digits?
- Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, or any of the months of the year?
- A man and his son are in a car wreck, and are taken to different hospitals. At the emergency room of the hospital where the boy was taken, the attending physician gasps and says ” I can’t work on this patient – he’s my son!” How can this be?
- This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing is wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! But it is unusual, though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!
- Ralph is trying to limit his coffee input, so he alternates days of drinking coffee and hot tea. He drinks coffee on odd-numbered mornings, and hot tea on even-numbered mornings. Further, he always allows himself coffee on Mondays, regardless of date. He’s discovered that under these conditions, there are occasionally circumstances in which he could drink coffee for four straight days. Can you deduce those circumstances?
- How many total minutes will there be in this month (February 2018)? (Note: This BT is similar to [and perhaps easier than?] #1 above, but it’s here for a special reason. The answer reveals a neat new FUN NUMBER FACT!) (Emphatic Hint! The answer involves the number 8!)
- Which number has more total divisors: 60 or 160?
- Carpet is being advertised for $11.99 per square yard. (Call it $12 if you’d rather.) How much will it cost for the carpet only to fully carpet a small 9′ x 12′ bedroom? (As with most fake word problems, you may ignore costs of padding, labor, tax, etc.)
- An Antarctic base reports the temperature as ‘forty below zero’, but neglects to note whether that’s Fahrenheit or Celsius. Obviously, these are both COLD, but which is colder?
#1 a, 1,000,000 minutes = 1.9 years (with a calculation error, I used 365 day years)
B. 50,000,000 minutes = 95.1 years (with a small calculation error – I used 365 day years)
#2 G – glass bottle
B – brandy
G + B = 45
G + 40 = B
G + G + 40 = 45
2G = 5
G = 2,5
B = 42.5
G + B = 2,5 + 42.5 = 45
The bottle is $2.50
#3 James has 3 brothers (Nimrod, Elmer, & Bugs) and 3 sisters (Penelope, Mini, & Zola). Penelope has 4 brothers and 2 sisters, oddly enough so do Mini & Zola. There are 4 sons and 3 daughters.
#3 ODD there are 5 groups of 25 all-odd 3-digit numbers starting with 111, 311, 511, 711, and 911. There are 125 all-odd 3-digit numbers.
EVEN there are 4 groups of 25 all-even 3-digit numbers starting with 200, 400, 600, and 800. There are 100 all-even 3-digit numbers. No the number is not the same for even and odd numbers.
My answer to BT #3 includes names of the 3 brothers, Nimrod, Elmer, and Bugs. The 3 names are connected; how are they connected?
Thanks, Jim!! I’m going to go ahead and post this ‘early’, since it doesn’t give much information as to the solution (or whether it works or not), AND because perhaps future readers will be interested/curious. (Any significance to the girls’ names you use? 🙂 )
As always, thanks for your always-creative comments/responses. 🙂
SPOILER ALERT. Read no further if you want to ponder Jim’s own Brain Teaser yourself!!
Bugs (Bunny) and Elmer (Fudd) are old rivals, since the days of early cartoons up to the present. One of Bugs’ favorite insults for Elmer is to call him a Nimrod, which has (because of this) since come to mean ‘dimwit’ in the modern lexicon. Actually (thanks Google!), this was originally sarcastic on Bugs’ part, since Nimrod was a GREAT hunter ‘of the Lord’ in biblical times. (See Genesis 10:8–9, for the curious).
Larry,
The girls names are not connected. You are correct about the boy’s name. Nimrod was Noah’s grandson and was known for his prowess as a hunter.
We have a novel entitled “Project Nimrod”, it is a military novel.e
Our nickname for our first cat, Face, was Nimrod, she quite good at hunting mice.
#5. 3 consecutive days: All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween), All Saints Day, All Souls Day are October 31, November 1, and November 2, respectively, on the Catholic Liturgical calendar.
Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Feast of Steven/Boxing Day/Kwanza (!2-24, 12-25, 12-26).
#6 I know the answer, this question appeared on “All The Family.” The physician is the boy’s mother. However, in this day and age we must consider other possibilities: 1) the physician is the boy’s father who surrendered parental rights; the man in the car married the boy’s mother and adopted him. 2) the boy’s parents used in vitro fertilization and the physician is the sperm donor. 3) The boy was adopted by 2 gay men.
#8 Saturday the 31st, Sunday the 1st, Monday the 2nd.
2. $5
3. 4 brother and 3 sisters
4. 125 odd and 100 even
5. yesterday, today and tomorrow
6. It was his mother.
8. He drinks it on Saturday the 31st, Sunday the 1st, Monday the 2nd and Tuesday the 3rd.
2. is $2.50 not my original answer. 🙂
Ok so I thought I couldn’t be right on the answers to #1 so I didn’t put them on my first comment. I figured it again and came up with the same answer so I am giving you what I think. $1 a minute is 694 days 10 hours and 40 minutes. $20 a minute is 95 years 47 days 320 minutes.
9. 40,320 for 28 days
41,760 for 29 days
10. They both have the same number of divisors.
11. $144.00
12. They are the same. I did look this one up, so don’t give me credit for knowing this one. I did ask my third graders and they said Fahrenheit was colder.
1. I suspect this is a trick question … somewhat like the frog in the well problem.
2. cost of bottle = $2.50
3. 2 brothers, 1 sister
4. 125 all odd digits
100 all even digits
5. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day
6. the doctor is his MOTHER
7. does not contain the letter “E” (most commonly used letter)
9. 40,320 min.
10. both have the same (12 divisors)
11. $143.88
12. either scale (F or C) is equivalent for -40 degrees – it is the same temperature on both scales
revision to #3: James has 1 brother and 1 sister (so there are 2 boys and 1 girl in the family)
1. IF it takes a FULL minute to spend $1, then it would take one million minutes, and under the same conditions it would take 50,000,000 minutes to spend $1 billion.
9. So is this just an interesting coincidence (8!= the answer), or is there a connection?