Riddles

That confuses me too.

GRY, you said to listen carefully, so I thought “He must mean, G or Y or soemthing like that…” :neutral:

and then I see language and think WTF? :eh:

… it doesn’t end in g and it doesn’t end in y… I’m confused

it said think of 3 words with gry at the end, hungry and angry r 2. that was all just to throgh u off, so now u’ll get it… i hope

I’ve heard one like that before.

Couldnt do it then either.

Bugger!

:sad:

ulrik_tr : the prisoner puts all the white balls in one jar and the black in the other.

ok if you realy like math try this one

There is 5 men and a monkey on an island, they have been gathering coconuts all day and have fallen asleep.
The first man wakes up and decides to hide his share of the nuts, he devides the nuts in to 5 equal shares and gives the monkey the nut left over. after hidding his share he goes back to sleep.
After a while the second man wakes up and does as the first man. devides the nuts in to 5 equal shares ,gives the nut left over to the monkey and hides his share.
one after one tha last 3 men does as above, each time giving one nut to the monkey.
what is the smallest number of coconuts the men could have gathered ?.
(what if there is 101 men on the island?)

ulrik_tr : whate i wrote above is wrong . he puts one white ball in a jar and the rest of the balls in the other jar.

How did they carry that many coconuts?

:wink:

Sleeper- I don’t know if this is right, but does each man get 6 coconuts?
Take one away and it leaves you with five, which can be divided by five.
There are 5 men altogether so there are 30 coconuts collected in total.

alex : if they had gathered 30 ,what would happen when the first man wakes ? he would devide the coconuts in to 5 shares of 6 nuts, which would leave no nut forw the monkey.

now you can try fix this by adding one nut, but that just moves the problem to the second man leaving him with 4 nuts fore the monkey.
( (31-1)(4/5) = 24 = 54+4 )

Oh, ok, now i understand the problem. Is it 3906?
3906-1=3905
3905/5=781
781-1=780
780/5=156
156-1=155
155/5=31
31-1=30
30/5=6
6-1=5
5/5=1
For 101 men it is about 2.7591805873929 * 10^202 cocconuts.

I also had 3906 (I REALLY had it gg)
You just have to go backwards

Traumgänger

I still don’t get it… :sad:

alex and traumgänger : sorry 3906 is wrong. the error you make is deviding by 5 without multiplying by 4 , remember each man removes 1/5 which leavs 4/5 so when the first man wakes he gives one nut to the monkey 3906-1=3905 then he removes his 1/5 which gives 3905-39051/5=3905(1-1/5)=3906*4/5=3124
this number leavs 4 nuts for the monkey.

and traumgänger going backwards only works if you know how many coconut are left after the fifth man hides his share.

ps: I dont’ think you can solve the problem for 101 on a calculater or computer ,the number is to big.

There are only three words in: “the English language”
What is the third word?
Language

Got it!

Sometimes semi-colons: and quotes" can be so useful :content:

Forget about the first sentence. It’s completely unrelated.
It’s funny how hard this is with the answer right below it. :mrgreen_hat:

wow… these sort of threads can get really confusing after being gone for only two days…

I just answered in order of appearance, and then removed any of the explanations I had that were answered later.

jabbervock-it isn’t 5 feet.

jesta-about alladin…I see no way to do that one, maybe your wording is confusing me, are you saying that he got his genie to see that both the envelopes had “banished” in them?

ulrik_tk-if the guard gets to decide which jar to use, and you have to use all the balls, it wouldn’t matter how you “arrange” them because it is the same as having all the balls in one jar.

jabbervock-there is no answer to the “raven/writing-desk” riddle. the most common “semi-response” is “Poe wrote on both”. this “riddle” is from alice in wonderland.

Dream-addict-yep, 3 feet, the boat isn’t fixed to the land but to the water :content:

jesta-also, you could say “he was cleaning on a balcony” (about the window cleaner).

Third time lucky. Is it 3121?

kmcdonald: Sleeper answered the riddle correctly. The prisoner puts 1 white ball in one jar, and the rest of the balls in the other jar.
Then there is a 50% chance for both jars. If the guard takes in the jar with the white ball, there is a 100% chance for him to take a white. If he takes a ball in the other jar, there is 49/99 = 49,9% chance for him to take a white.
So then there is about 74% chance for a white.

Now I got it. Really a brain-twister.

Ok,this one is nice, but perhaps a bit difficult to describe in english:

You are in a prisoners cell with a lamp.In a different cell are three switches.If you find out wich one works for the lamp, you are free.You can leave your cell only one time, go to the cell with the switches, and return.Then you have to know the answer.

I know the answer, but I won’t tell it so early :cool:

Well, it sounds too easy, so i don’t know if it’s right. But if there’s only bars between the cells, and not walls, you can see the lamp.
You could also take the lamp with you.