2005 Puzzlers

12-26	PUZZLER: Jerry and the Quizzical Water Pump Repair The truck was parked in the bay next to the lift, and it had two flat tires in the front. What the heck was going on?
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12-19	PUZZLER: In Search of a Magic Number Imagine two numbers, such that their product is equal to their sum. If so, what are those numbers? Zero is disqualified.
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12-12	PUZZLER: The Self-Adjusting Mystery Clock A certain clock in my house is not wired into anything, yet it reads correctly without my having to change it every spring and fall. How does it do this?
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12-05	PUZZLER: So Who's Getting More? Last year, Tommy got a raise of 10 percent. I got a pay cut of 10 percent. This year, I got a 10 percent raise, and Tommy got a 10 percent cut. Who's making more money now, and why?
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11-28	PUZZLER: The Not-So-EZ Pass Per instruction, Alex mailed in his no longer needed EZ Pass only to receive his next statement to find someone running up his bill. How could that be?
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11-21	PUZZLER: Reading from Bottom to Top Can you think of an example of when you might read from bottom to top, so that the next line of text is the one above the first line of text?
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11-14	PUZZLER: The Hall of 20,000 Ceiling Lights There are 20,000 lights on. A person comes through and pulls the cord on every second light. A third person comes along and pulls the cord on every third light, etc. When someone comes who pulls every 20,000th chain, which lights are on?
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11-07	PUZZLER: Ray's Matchstick Puzzler You have four matchsticks of equal length. Without breaking or bending them, how can you make 16 ninety-degree angles?
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10-31	PUZZLER: The Case of the Mysterious Murder in Maine Two months after getting home from vacation, how did the
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10-24	PUZZLER: Ray's Chicken-and-Egg Puzzler A chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half. How long will it take for two chickens to lay 32 eggs?
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10-17	PUZZLER: The License Plate Series, Part III The license plate has four letters on it: i-n-m-y. What's the car to which it's attached?
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10-10	PUZZLER: The Mystery of the Frozen Block of Soda Why was Tommy's soda nice and chilly-- but Ray's was frozen solid?
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10-03	PUZZLER: The Top Secret Free-Beer Code The bartender says, "six." The customer says, "three," and he gets a free beer. The bartender says, "twelve," and a second customer says, "six." He gets his free beer. The bartender says, "fourteen" and a third customer says, "eight." He gets a free beer
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09-26	PUZZLER: Charlie and the Perplexing Temperature Billboard The Celsius temperature on the billboard read exactly the same as it did that morning. But the Fahrenheit temperature read 36 degrees colder. What was going on?
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09-19	PUZZLER: : Tommy Makes an Ingenious Repair Why did Tommy buy a five-cent candy bar to fix his old man's '51 Dodge?
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09-12	PUZZLER: : A Fraud in an Ascot Why is the ascot-wearing college professor a fraud and a liar?
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09-05	PUZZLER: Bob and the Miracle Car What tail-finned relic was Bob driving the night his alternator died?
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08-29	PUZZLER: For Whom The Dart Tows If it's Tommy's car that broke down, then why does he end up doing the towing?
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08-22	PUZZLER: Shipwrecked Saga What are the fewest crossings a boat can take to port in order to save a shipwrecked family?
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08-15	PUZZLER: Dividing Time Draw a clock face on a piece of paper. Now draw two lines. Where do you draw the lines so that the sums of the numbers in each section are equal?
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08-08	PUZZLER: Ray's Extra Smart Scan Tool How did the scanning tool know that the right front tire was low on air?
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08-01	PUZZLER: How Much for Twelve? The Confounding House Number Puzzler. The first customer buys the number one. O, N, E. He pays two bucks. The next guy buys the number TWO and pays three bucks. The third guy buys the number ELEVEN, and he pays five bucks. How much does the number "twelve" cost?
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07-25	PUZZLER: Two Glasses of Water You have a four-ounce glass and a nine-ounce glass. You have an endless supply of water. You can fill or dump either glass. What's the quickest way to measure six ounces?
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07-18	PUZZLER: Evil King Berman and the Fair Maiden Inside one of the boxes is a picture of Rowena. One says, "It'ss in here," another says, "Not in this box." The third box says, "It'ss not in the first box." Only one statement is true. Where's the picture?
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07-11	PUZZLER: The Magic Hat No matter what number you pull out of the magic hat, Vinnie will always pull out a number that is either one above or one below your number. Eventually one contestant will know what number the other contestant has. Why is that?
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07-04	PUZZLER: The Case of the Missing Law Book The first book was "A through M." The second was "N through W." I wondered what happened to the last volume, "X, Y and Z." Then I figured out there was no missing volume. Why not?
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06-27	PUZZLER: Hubcaps of the Undercover Highway Patrol I got stopped for speeding by an unmarked state police car. As he drove off, I noticed the "half moon hubcaps." Why did he have them?
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06-20	PUZZLER: A Most Unsavory Cup of Coffee Richard saw a match floating in his coffee. He called the hostess over. She immediately removed the cup and quickly returned, saying, "Here's a fresh cup!" Richard bellowed, "This is the same coffee!" How did he know?
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06-13	PUZZLER: Two little cubes-- and too many numbers. If you were designing two cubes to work together as a calendar, what numbers would you paint on each one so you could express all the dates from "01" to "31"?
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06-06	PUZZLER: A doctor, an operation, and five missing words "The (blank) doctor was (blank) (blank) to operate, because she had (blank) (blank)." The letters used to fill in the first blank are the same used to fill in the two blanks after the word "was" and after the word "had." You can'st rearrange the letters.
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05-31	PUZZLER: The Case of the Mysterious Hotel Television I grabbed the remote and tried to turn on the TV. Nothing happened. I pressed the power button. Zippo. The electrician asks asks me to turn on the lamp next to the TV. It works. He says, 'I see your problem.' What was it?
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05-23	PUZZLER: Which Blades to Buy? With an outstretched hand I estimated the windshield wiper length: 18-inches. But, it was one inch too short. I tried the 19-inchers. They were an inch too long. Which blades did I buy?
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05-16	PUZZLER: The Chicken Nugget Conundrum Chicken nuggets only come in a box of 6, 9, or 20. What is the largest number of chicken pieces that you cannot order?
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05-09	PUZZLER: An Item from the Automotive MIA Files You won't find them on a passenger car anymore, anywhere, anyhow. Some pickup trucks and SUVs still have them. What is it?
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04-25	PUZZLER: Send more money. But, how much?
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04-18	PUZZLER: Bringing a dead Bug back to life How did Bob start his dead Bug without touching the engine or the battery?
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04-11	PUZZLER: What's in a Car's Name? Each morning the remaining letters of my car's model name still spelled a word in the English language. What model car did I drive?
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04-04	PUZZLER: How to Save a City from Measles Edmund J. Potas suggested a form of mass communication that had never been used before. It was a success. And this method has been used countless times ever since. What did he suggest?
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03-21	PUZZLER: Pondering Two Inventions I'm thinking of two inventions from long ago. One of them has thousands of moving parts. The other has one part, and it doesn't move. What am I thinking of?
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03-14	PUZZLER: A Dark and Stormy Night... and a Leak How many people started out on each floor of the rainsoaked apartment?
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03-07	PUZZLER: A Puzzler of Olympic Proportions An athlete competing in the Olympic Games puts forth a record-setting performance in the long jump. But, he does not win a gold medal. In fact, he wins no medal at all. Why not?
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02-28	PUZZLER: A Seven-Letter Vacation Curiosity On my vacation I saw something that is spelled with all five vowels, and seven letters total. My friend saw the something different on his vacation -- but it was the same word. What's the word?
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02-21	PUZZLER: The Creepy Case of the Haunted Car The battery was disconnected so how on earth could the headlights possibly be on, when the tow truck driver towed the 60 year old car?
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02-14	PUZZLER: New Math on the Home Front "60 is more than 30. 60 and a hundred are the same, but 90 is more than a hundred." What were M elynn and I talking about?
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02-07	PUZZLER: The Case of the Curious Mirror My wife found an entire passenger side mirror for her car on Ebay. It was from the exact same year, make and model car, and it was even the same color. But it didn't fit. Why not?
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01-31	PUZZLER: SUV or Hybrid? A Familial, MPG Conundrum How would your household see the biggest improvement in miles per gallon: by getting the new hybrid, or by tuning up the old SUV?
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01-24	PUZZLER: Whole Lotta Hand Shakin' Goin' On Five married couples shake hands. Couples don'st shake their partner'ss hands or people they know. John asks the group how many hands each person shook and they answer 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8. How many hands did his wife shake?
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01-17	PUZZLER: Keepus Leftus, Brutus How did the British archaeologists know that the Romans had been driving on the left hand side of the road?
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01-10	PUZZLER: A Puzzler from the Final Frontier Why did the electronic gear that NASA sent into space keep failing-even after they had installed a cooling fan?
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12-28	PUZZLER: A Most Curious Array of Breakdowns Why, suddenly, did James start seeing so many cars, mysteriously broken down by the side of the road?
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