Head Scratchers 15

[Bumper]

1. You can find roads without cars, And roam through forests without trees, Cities exist without houses? Whatever can I be?

2. You are driving in a car at a constant speed. On your left side is a 'drop off' (The ground is 18-20 inches below the level you are traveling on), and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you. In front of you is a galloping horse which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it. Behind you is another galloping horse. Both horses are also traveling at the same speed as you. What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

3. Julie is going on an extended trip for three weeks. She lives in a remote area where there are frequent electrical power outages which can last up to three or four days. Julie has quite a bit of food in her freezer which would go bad if it thawed and then re-froze. She does have digital clock and a VCR which would flash 12:00 if the power went out. Unfortunately the clock and VCR flash even if the power only goes out for a few seconds. What can Julie do so that when she returns home she will be able to determine whether the power was out long enough to thaw her food? Asking a neighbor whether the power was out, isn't a reliable option because the nearest house is half a mile away, and one house may have power, while another house may have no power. She won't be able to have a neighbour check on her house every day, and has no one to house sit.


4. I'm not an airplane, but I can fly through the sky. I'm not a river, but I'm full of water. What am I?

5. What is the fastest time that a group of four people can row to the other side of the river with the following rules in place?
The speed of the rowers is as follows:
Rower #1 -- rows in 1 minute
Rower #2 -- rows in 2 minutes
Rower #5 -- rows in 5 minutes
Rower #10 -- rows in 10 minutes
All four people must get to the other side of the river using the rowboat
Only two people can travel in, on, or around the boat at any one time.
The person in the boat who rows at the slowest speed must do the rowing (they travel at the speed of the slowest person).

6. The "he" puzzle: Name an English word of more than 2 letters that both begins and ends with the letters 'he' (in that order). (Actually, there are two possible correct answers -- and "hehe" is not an acceptable solution.)

7. What kind of cheese is made backwards?

8. Hundreds of years ago, a king of an Asian country who lived in a port city, received a visit from a king of adjacent country, his friend. The visitor brought a present with him. It was an elephant. The visitor gave it and said, "Can you measure the elephant's rough weight in a day?" The king of the port city consulted with the retainers. "We just have beam scales weighing bags. Do you have any ideas?" One vassal said, "I can make the relevant measuring equipment assembling large levers and pulleys, your majesty." "Can you make it in a day?" "......I can't." Another vassal said, "How about weighing in pieces after killing the elephant?" "I won't." At last they found the method and measured the elephant's approximate weight without sophisticated devices. What was the method?

9. There are eight ways a baseball player can legally reach first base without getting a hit. Name them.

10. You have four unmarked bottles of pills each containing 100 tablets. One bottle of pills is poisoned. The good pills weigh exactly 1 gram a piece. The poisoned ones weigh exactly 1.1 gram a piece. You also have use of a scale, but can only use it one time. How can you determine with certainty which bottle of pills is poisoned?

[bebe2]

Happy New Year Bumper!

1. A map.
2. Slow down. (Or wake up...this sounds like one of my crazy dreams!).
3. Open her freezer and look inside.
4. A rain cloud.
5.. Three trips. Rower #1 in the boat, with one of the other rowers hanging on the side of the boat in the water. Rower #1 goes back and picks up one of the other rowers who hangs on to the side of the boat in the water as Rower #1 rows to the other shore. This is repeated with Rower #1 always doing the rowing and one of the other rowers in the water hanging on to the side of the boat. Two round trips, and one one-way trip gets all rowers to the other side in 5 minutes. (This one hurt my brain - hope it's right).
6. Still scratching on this one.
7. Edam.
8. Some way using the water, since they are a port city, but what.......????
9. A walk. Getting hit by the ball. And.......(come on sports fans, help me out).
10. Take all four bottles and put them all on the scale at the same time. Total weight = 410 grams. Take one bottle at a time off the scale and read the weight as you remove each bottle. When the 10 gram measurement no longer reads as part of the total weight, that last bottle you removed contains the poisoned pills.

[Bumper]

The Official Answers

1. On a map.

2. Get your drunk ass off the merry-go-round. (With thanks to alwaysmissinpdc)

3. One thing Julie could do is freeze a tray of ice-cubes, and turn the tray of ice upside down in her freezer. When she comes home, she should check the tray. If the ice cubes are still in the tray, the food is safe to eat. If the trays are empty, it's time to clean out the freezer. She'll have to make a judgment call if the ice-cubes are only slightly thawed.

4. A cloud

5. 1) #2 rows #1 across in 2 minutes
2) #1 returns in 1 minute
3) #10 rows #5 across in 10 minutes
4) #2 returns in 2 minutes
5) #2 rows #1 across in 2 minutes
Total is 17 minutes, and steps 2) and 4) can be interchanged. The key is to have #10 row #5 across and have a faster rower waiting on the other side to take the boat back.

6. Headache Or heartache

7. EDAM cheese. ( 'made' backwards is edam )

8. Load the elephant onto a boat large enough to carry it. The boat will sink slightly, and you mark the level of the water on the side of t he boat. Then you offload the elephant and fill the boat with bags until the boat sinks to the level marked. The bags can be individually weighed using beam scales and the weight of the elephant is the sum of the weight of the bags.

9. 1. balk (although a player cannot automatically advance to first on a balk, a balked pitch is automatically a ball, and a runner could walk to first base if the balk is the fourth "ball");
2. walk;
3. hit-by-pitch;
4. defensive interference;
5. fielders choice;
6. dropped third strike;
7. being designated as a pinch runner;
8. error.

10. (1) Remove 1 pill from Bottle 1. (2) Remove 2 pills from Bottle 2. (3) Remove 3 pills from Bottle 3. (4) Remove 4 pills from Bottle 4. (5) Combine the 10 pills and weight them together. (6) If Bottle 1 has the poisoned pills, the 10 pills will weigh 10.1 grams. (7) If Bottle 2 has the poisoned pills, the 10 pills will weigh 10.2 grams. (8) If Bottle 3 has the poisoned pills, the 10 pills will weigh 10.3 grams. (9) If Bottle 4 has the poisoned pills, the 10 pills will weigh 10.4 grams. And the problem is solved.