Tag Archives: puzzles

Cool Puzzle

Here.

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Puzzle about Journalism

From the New York Times article 5 days ago “Romney Beating Obama in a Fight for Wall St. Cash“: Mitt Romney has raised far more money than Mr. Obama this year from the firms that have been among Wall Street’s … Continue reading

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Answer to Running Puzzle

Here is the answer to the running puzzle I posted last month: In short, the simple version of the puzzle is that you are going to run around a track for 30 minutes, at the same time that you know your … Continue reading

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Dice Puzzle

Steve Landsburg has posted a puzzle about dice. I haven’t thought about it much and I don’t know whether I can solve it but it looks pretty good: A standard pair of six-sided dice induce a probability distribution on the … Continue reading

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Coin Flipping Puzzle

Suppose your friend offers you the opportunity to play this game for free: Your friend will flip a biased coin 1000 times, which has a 60% chance of coming up heads each time, and a 40% chance of coming up tails. Every … Continue reading

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An Exciting Puzzle (Updated Sun 7/31)

Update Sept 3: Solution (to original version) is here Update 7/31: The solution to this puzzle requires not much math at all, if you think about it the right way. I’m tempted to only award beer if someone gets the … Continue reading

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Illegality of Blackmail (a test)

I’ve finished Leo Katz’s book. The basic question of the book is “Why is blackmail illegal?” It seems odd that it is illegal — so odd that lawyers have coined the term “The Paradox of Blackmail.” Consider the standard case: … Continue reading

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Typing Puzzle (Updated Thurs July 21)

Note: This is reposted due to my update with a hint and solution, and due to the (relatively) low quality of my post about politicians and animals. John Derbyshire has posted is a puzzle that I’ve never come across before, … Continue reading

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Paying back debts

Suppose a charismatic anti-debt crusader (maybe Ron Paul) persuaded everyone in the world to pay pack all of his debts. This includes the U.S. treasury, all private banks, corporations, and all individuals (but not central banks, e.g. the Federal Reserve … Continue reading

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Another $20 Brainteaser

Update Saturday 1am: I am not totally satisfied with this puzzle as it feels a bit contrived. I think I can make it both more realistic and not that much more convoluted. I am going to try to do that … Continue reading

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