BULBS

This is one of my favorite free printable logic puzzles with a real life solution. There are three switches downstairs. Each corresponds to one of the three light bulbs in the attic. You can turn the switches on and off and leave them in any position. How would you identify which switch corresponds to which light bulb, if you are only allowed one trip upstairs?
Keep the first bulb switched on for a few minutes. It gets warm, right? So all you have to do then is ... switch it off, switch another one on, walk into the room with bulbs, touch them and tell which one was switched on as the first one (the warm one) and the others can be easily identified

2A Ping-Pong Ball in a Hole Your last good ping-pong ball fell down into a narrow metal pipe imbedded in concrete one foot deep. How can you get it out undamaged, if all the tools you have are your tennis paddle, your shoe-laces, and your plastic water bottle, which does not fit into the pipe?

All the tools are random things that are not going to help you. All you have to do is pour some water into the pipe so that the ball swims up on the surface. And if you say that you don't have any water, then think about what you drank today and if you can use that somehow :-)

A Man in an Elevator
A man who lives on the tenth floor takes the elevator down to the first floor every morning and goes to work. In the evening, when he comes back; on a rainy day, or if there are other people in the elevator, he goes to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the seventh floor and walks up three flights of stairs to his apartment. The man is of short stature. He can't reach the upper elevator buttons, but he can ask people to push them for him. He can also push them with his umbrella.

The Ball
How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you, even if it doesn't bounce off anything? There is nothing attached to it, and no one else catches or throws it back to you.

Throw the ball straight up in the air.

What is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it, youll die? Nothing.

Who makes it, has no need of it. Who buys it, has no use for it. Who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it? A coffin

Puzzling Prattle (by Sam Loyd) Two children, who were all tangled up in their reckoning of the days of the week, paused on their way to school to straighten matters out. "When the day after tomorrow is yesterday," said Priscilla, then 'today' will be as far from Sunday as that day was which was 'today' when the day before yesterday was tomorrow!" On which day of the week did this puzzling prattle occur? The two children were so befogged over the calendar that they had started on their way to school on Sunday morning!

There are a few trees in a garden. On one of them, a pear tree, there are pears (quite logical). But after a strong wind blew, there were neither pears on the tree nor on the ground. How come? At first, there were 2 pears on the tree. After the wind blew, one pear fell on the ground. So there where no pears on the tree and there were no pears on the ground.

The captain of a ship was telling this interesting story: "We traveled the sea far and wide. At one time, two of my sailors were standing on opposite sides of the ship. One was looking west and the other one east. And at the same time, they could see each other clearly." How can that be possible? The marines were standing back against the sides of the ship so they were looking at each other. It does not matter where the ship is (of course it does not apply to the North and South Pole).

Ship Ladder A ladder hangs over the side of a ship anchored in a port. The bottom rung touches the water. The distance between rungs is 20 cm and the length of the ladder is 180 cm. The tide is rising at the rate of 15 cm each hour. When will the water reach the seventh rung from the top?

If the tide is raising water, then it is raising the ship on water, too. So water will reach still the first rung.

Hotel Bill Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager finds out that the room rate is $25 and gives the bellboy $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to split among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person. Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totaling $27. The bellboy has another $2, adding up to $29. Where is the remaining dollar?

This is a nice nonsense. Each guest paid $9 because they gave $30 and they were given back $3. The manager got $25 and the difference ($2) has the bellboy. So it is nonsense to add the $2 to the $27, since the bellboy kept the $2. Small Hotel 13 people came into a hotel with 12 rooms and each guest wanted his own room. The bellboy solved this problem.He asked the thirteenth guest to wait a little with the first guest in room number 1. So in the first room there were two people. The bellboy took the third guest to room number 2, the fourth to number 3, ..., and the twelfth guest to room number 11. Then he returned to room number 1 and took the thirteenth guest to room number 12, still vacant. How can everybody have his own room? Of course, it is impossible. Into the second room should have gone the 2nd guest, because the 13th guest was waiting in room number 1. One-Way Street A girl who was just learning to drive went down a one-way street in the wrong direction, but didn't break the law. How come?She was walking. Cost of War Here's a variation on a famous puzzle by Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.A group of 100 soldiers suffered the following injuries in a battle: 70 soldiers lost an eye, 75 lost an ear, 85 lost a leg, and 80 lost an arm. What is the minimum number of soldiers who must have lost all 4? Add up all the injuries, and you find that 100 soldiers suffered a total of 310 injuries. That total means that, at a minimum, 100 soldiers (Edit: it is, of course, not 100 soldiers, but 100 as calculation from 310 person-injuries out of 400 possible) lost 3 body parts, and 10 (the remainder when dividing 310 by 100) must have lost all 4 body parts. (In reality, as many as 70 may have lost all 4 body parts.) Edit: another way to solve it is to draw a line of 100 parts and compare injuries from opposite ends of the line, finding the intersection part of all 4 injuries. If left side of line (LS), right side (RS) and intersection (I), then: 70 (LS) and 75 (RS), then 45 (I) 45 (LS) and 85 (RS), then 30 (I) 30 (LS) and 80 (RS), then 10 (I) soldiers must have lost all 4 parts

Just in Time What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years? The letter m. hort Riddles Why can't a man living in the USA be buried in Canada? Is it legal for a man in California to marry his widow's sister? Why? A man builds a house rectangular in shape. All the sides have southern exposure. A big bear walks by. What color is the bear? Why? (similar to the Bear riddle in the section Einstein's Riddles) If there are 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have? How far can a dog run into the woods? One big hockey fan claimed to be able to tell the score before any game. How did he do it? You can start a fire if you have alcohol, petrol, kerosene, paper, candle, coke, a full matchbox and a piece of cotton wool. What is the first thing you light? Why do Chinese men eat more rice than Japanese men do? What word describes a woman who does not have all her fingers on one hand?

Why should a living man be buried? No, it is not legal to get married if you are dead. The bear is white since the house is built on the North Pole. If you take 2 apples, then you have of course 2. The dog can run into the woods only to the half of the wood than it would run out of the woods. The score before any hockey game should be 0:0, shouldnt it? A match, of course. There are more Chinese men than Japanese men. Normal I wouldnt be very happy if I had all my fingers (10) on one hand.

Fork in the Road - Logic Questions You are travelling down a country lane to a distant village. You reach a fork in the road and find a pair of identical twin sisters standing there. One standing on the road to village and the other standing on the road to neverland (of course, you don't know or see where each road leads). One of the sisters always tells the truth and the other always lies (of course, you don't know who is lying). Both sisters know where the roads go. If you are allowed to ask only one question to one of the sisters to find the correct road to the village, what is your question? Honestants and Swindlecants I There are two kinds of people on a mysterious island. There are so-called Honestants who speak always the truth, and the others are Swindlecants who always lie. Three fellows (A, B and C) are having a quarrel at the market. A gringo goes by and asks the A fellow: "Are you an Honestant or a Swindlecant?" The answer is incomprehensible so the gringo gives another quite logical question to B: "What did A say?" B answers: "A said that he is a Swindlecant." And to that says the fellow C: "Do not believe B, he is lying!" Who is B and C? It is impossible that any inhabitant of such an island says: I am a liar. An honestant would thus be lying and a swindlecant would be speaking truth. So B must have been lying and therefore he is a swindlecant. And that means that C was right saying B is lying so C is an honestant. However, it is not clear what is A. Our gringo displeased the sovereign with his intrusive questions and was condemned to death. But there was also a chance to save himself by solving the following logic problem. The gringo was shown two doors - one leading to a scaffold and the second one to freedom (both doors were the same) and only the door guards knew what was behind the doors. The sovereign let the gringo put one question to one guard. And because the sovereign was an honest man he warned that one guard is a Swindlecant. What logic question can save the gringo's life? You probably remember the answer from the very first problem on this page, don't you :-)

There are a few types of questions: Indirect question: Hey you, what would the other guard say, if I asked him where this door leads? The answer is always negated. Tricky question: Hey you, does an honestant stand at the door to freedom? The answer will be YES, if I am asking an honestant who is standing at the door to freedom, or if I am asking a swindlecant standing again at the same door. So I can walk through the door. A similar deduction can be made for negative answer. Complicated question: Hey you, what would you say, if I asked you ...? An honestant is clear, but a swindlecant should lie. However, he is forced by the question to lie two times and thus speak the truth.

Lion and Unicorn I Alice came across a lion and a unicorn in a forest of forgetfulness. Those two are strange beings. The lion lies every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and the other days he speaks the truth. The unicorn lies on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, however the other days of the week he speaks the truth. Lion: Yesterday I was lying. Unicorn: So was I. Which dAs there is no day when both of the beings would be lying, at least one of them must have spoken the truth. They both speak the truth only on Sunday. However, the Lion would then be lying in his statement, so it couldnt be said on Sunday. So exactly one of them lied. If the Unicorn was honest, then it would have to be Sunday but previously we proved this wrong. Thus only the Lion spoke the truth when he met Alice on Thursday and spoke with the Unicorn about Wednesday. ay did they say that? Lion said: Yesterday I was lying and two days after tomorrow I will be lying again. Which day did he say that? This conjunction is true only if both parts are true. The first part is true only on Thursday, but the second part is a lie then (Sunday is not a lying day of the Lion). So the whole statement can never be true (at least one part is not true). Therefore the Lion could have made the statement on Monday, on Tuesday and even on Wednesday.

Island Baal There are people and strange monkeys on this island, and you can not tell who is who. They speak either only the truth or only lies. Who are the following two guys? A: B is a lying monkey. I am human. B: A is telling the truth. Conjunction used by A is true only if both parts are true. Under the assumption that B is an honest man, then A would be honest too (B says so) and so B would be a liar as A said, which would be a conflict. So B is a liar. And knowing that, B actually said that A is a liar, too. First statement of A is thus a lie and B is not a lying monkey. However, B is lying which means he is not a monkey. B is a lying man. The second statement of A indicates that A is a monkey so A is a lying monkey.

Truth, Lie and Wisdom Three goddesses were sitting in an old Indian temple. Their names were Truth (always telling the truth), Lie (always lying) and Wisdom (sometimes lying). A visitor asked the one on the left: "Who is sitting next to you?" "Truth," she answered. Then he asked the one in the middle: "Who are you?" "Wisdom." Lastly, he asked the one on the right: "Who is your neighbor?" "Lie," she replied. And then it became clear who is who.

Lets assign a letter to each goddess. We get these sentences. 1. 2. 3. A says: B is Truth. B says: I am Wisdom. C says: B is Lie.

First sentence hints that A is not Truth. Second sentence is not said by Truth either, so C is Truth. Thus the third sentence is true. B is Lie and A is Wisdom. In the Alps Three tourists have an argument regarding the way they should go. Hans says that Emanuel lies. Emanuel claims that Hans and Philip speak the same, only doesn't know whether truth or lie. So who is lying for sure? The only one who is lying for sure is Philip. Hans speaks probably the truth and Emanuel lies. It can be also the other way, but since Hans expressed himself before Emanuel did, then Emanuels remark (that he does not know whether Hans is lying) is not true.

Coins Imagine there are 3 coins on the table: gold, silver, and copper. If you make a truthful statement, you will get one coin. If you make a false statement, you will get nothing. What sentence can guarantee you getting the gold coin? You will give me neither copper nor silver coin." If it is true, then I have to get the gold coin. If it is a lie, then the negation must be true, so "you give me either copper or silver coin", which would break the given conditions that you get no coin when lying. So the first sentence must be true.

Slim Lover Something to relax. A slim young man asked a girl on a date: "I say something. If it is truthful, will you give me your photo?" "Yes," replied miss. "And if it is a lie, do not give me your photograph. Would you promise that?" The girl agreed. Then the chap said such a sentence, that after a little while of thinking she realized, that if she wanted to honor her promise, she wouldn't have to give him a photo but a kiss. What would you say (if you were him) to be kissed and so on.. You could say for instance this sentence: You will give me neither your photo nor a kiss.