DAY 269
You have three boxes labelled PEACHES, ORANGES, and PEACHES AND ORANGES. All three boxes are labelled incorrectly. How can you label the boxes correctly by opening just one box and removing just one piece of fruit?

Answer:

Open the box labelled PEACHES AND ORANGES. Since it is labelled incorrectly, it should contain either all oranges or all peaches. If you pull out an orange, you know that box should be labelled ORANGES. Now switch the labels on the other two boxes and they will all be correct.

DAY 268
If I put one canary in each cage, I have one canary too many. If I put two canaries in each cage, I have one cage too many. How many canaries and how many cages do I have?

Answer:

4 canaries and 3 cages...............Let X = canaries and Y = cages.
X - 1 = Y and X/2 + 1 = Y...............So X - 1 = X/2 + 1.

DAY 267
If eggs cost 12 cents a dozen, how much would 100 eggs cost?

Answer:

$1.00 (one cent each)

DAY 266
Double my number, I'm less than a score;
Half of my number is less than four.
Add one to my double when bakers are near,
The days of the week are still greater I fear.

Answer:

six

DAY 265
When does 11 + 2 = 1

Answer:

when they are hours on a clock

DAY 264
What has 12 faces and 42 eyes?

Answer:

a pair of dice

DAY 263
Six men each have six baskets. Each basket contains six cats, and each cat has six kittens. How many legs are there in all?

Answer:

6,060 ----- (Don't forget about the six men.)

DAY 262
The product of two digits is such that the sum of the same two digits is that same product with the digits reversed. What are the two digits?

HINT:

The two digits are the same.

Answer:

9 and 9 (81 and 18)

DAY 261
Add a single word after each 1 in the equation below to make it true.

1 + 1 + 1 = 1

HINT:

There are at least two possible answers. One has to do with measurement.

Answer:

1 foot + 1 foot + 1 foot = 1 yard

1 third + 1 third + 1 third = 1 whole

DAY 260
When is 4 half of 5?

Answer:

In Roman numerals: FIVE

DAY 259
Mixed up in a bag are ten five-dollar bills, ten ten-dollar bills, and ten twenty-dollar bills. You can remove the bills, one at a time, without looking, but you must stop when you get three bills of the same denomination. What is the most money you could get out of the bag before you had to stop?

Answer:

$90..........$20 + $20 + $10 + $10 + $5 + $5 + $20

DAY 258
I will pay you $6.00/hour for the 6 seconds it takes you to wash your hands. How much do I owe you?

Answer:

1 cent...............$6.00 for 60 minutes is 10 cents/minute. 10 cents/60 seconds is 1 cent/6 seconds.

DAY 257

FRACTIONS AND MARRIAGE
Credit: GAMES Magazine--Bill Graham

NOTE: If you can solve this problem, according to a speaker who presented it at a math conference, then you really understand fractions.

In a town, three-fifths of the women are married to two-thirds of the men. What fraction of the town's adults are married? (Marriage is defined here as one man married to one woman.)

Answer:

Twelve-nineteenths.................If m = the number of men in the town and w = the number of women, then 3/5 (w) = 2/3 (m). Multiplying both sides of the equation by 15 yields the equation 9w = 10m. The smallest whole numbers that could satisfy this equation are w = 10 and m = 9, in which case we can confirm that three-fifths of the women (6) would be married to two-thirds of the men (6). This in turn would mean that 12 of the nineteen townspeople are married. Using solutions that are multiples of 10 and 9 will not alter this fraction.

DAY 256

FIGURE IT OUT
Credit: GAMES Magazine---Raymond Love

The two columns below add up to the same number and are related in a special way. Can you determine the significance of the juxtaposition of these columns?

FIVE.....................4
SIX........................9
SEVEN..................5

FIVE + SIX + SEVEN = 18
4 + 9 + 5 = 18

Answer:

The spelled-out numbers FIVE, SIX, and SEVEN contain the Roman numerals IV, IX, and V, respectively, corresponding to the 4, 9, and 5 in the right column.

DAY 255

A ton of $5 bills is worth almost $5,000,000.. How much is a pound worth?

Answer:

About $2,500