2008 Puzzlers
| 05-05 | PUZZLER: The Endless Mile John buys a new car 21 miles away and has a plan to pick it up: He drives his old car 21 miles north, parks it, gets the new car and drives that one mile south. He then locks it up, walks back north one mile to the dealer, picks up his old car and drives |
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| 04-28 | PUZZLER: Jumping Batteries Batman! A truck is stuck in a narrow alley with a dead battery. Another truck arrives but cannot reach the battery of the first truck with jumper cables. How do the drivers restart the first engine within just a few minutes? |
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| 04-21 | PUZZLER: Going Down Fast! Going down a long, steep grade, a car was gaining speed at an alarming rate even though the driver was in low gear — he had to use the brakes nearly the entire way down. Why did he have to use the brakes? And why didn't first gear slow down the car? |
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| 04-07 | PUZZLER: Burning Time You have two lengths of fuse and each takes exactly 1 hour to burn. But the fuses don't burn evenly and they're both likely to be different. Using only these two fuses and a cigarette lighter, how do you measure 45 minutes? |
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| 03-31 | PUZZLER: Flipping Ages A woman and her mother can reverse the digits in their ages. For example, if she is 37 her mother is 73. They have been able to do that six times in the past and could do it twice more in the future. How old is the woman now? |
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| 03-24 | PUZZLER: An Age-Old Question about a Ship and Its Boiler A ship and its boiler have a combined age of 42 years. The ship is twice as old as the boiler was when the ship was as old as the boiler is now. How old are they? |
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| 03-17 | PUZZLER: I'm Asking You Now! A woman calls her husband to remind him to do the grocery shopping. She asks him a normal question, which if she had asked it twenty or thirty years ago, he would have thought she was crazy. What was the question? |
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| 03-08 | PUZZLER: A Perfect Square A student is asked if the following number is a perfect square: 334,912,740,121,562. Crusty knows the answer immediately. What does Crusty know? |
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| 03-03 | PUZZLER: Lost Wages in Vegas A man goes to Vegas to gamble at a casino that requires a one-dollar entry and exit fee. The man plays the slots for three days, each day losing half his money, finally ending up broke. How much money did he start with? |
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| 02-25 | PUZZLER: A Field Goal Fiesta! A sports team is losing to its opponent by 6 to nothing, the opponent scored two field goals to account for its 6 points. The losing team then scores 3 field goals while holding the other team scoreless to lead by 7 to 6. How could that be correct? |
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| 02-11 | PUZZLER: You Want What? A man calls an auto parts store looking for a 28 ounce water pump. The store clerk has no idea what the part is-- but suddenly figures it out. The question is, what is the car part and what did the clerk figure out? |
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| 02-04 | PUZZLER: Dividing the Smart Kids Half of Ray's freshman class was smart enough to enroll in Calculus 2. Each section of advanced Calculus had the same number of students. How many sections were there? |
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| 01-28 | PUZZLER: Crusty and the Cruise Control Conundrum The cruise control on an old camper van is malfunctioning. Crusty solves the problem after looking at the rear lights. What was wrong? |
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| 01-21 | PUZZLER: The Palindromic Odometer Driving along, Terry notices that the last four digits on the odometer are palindromic. A mile later, the last five digits are palindromic. Two miles later, all six are palindromic. What was the odometer reading when Terry first looked at it? |
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| 01-14 | PUZZLER: Computing the Commute Jane's commute takes her one hour; however, some days it takes her longer. Why? |
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