After studying about African countries (just their location and their names – no more, yet) and Nikita and I doing the jigsaw puzzle every afternoon for fun, finally, I was ready for the test on Sporcle.

In the very first round, managed to name all the countries and their locations. In 4 minutes and 09 seconds. Now I am very scared to try it out again. I am deeply aware of the fact that me score can only go downhill from here 🙂

The 4 minute plus probably is not a stellar time but I am telling you – Africa does not make it easy on you with the country names. It has Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. I think their Department of Naming Diversity was headed by an ex-Atlantan (we call all our roads Peachtree). There is a Republic of Congo and then to make it more interesting, there is a Democratic Republic of Congo.

Funny part is Gambia – which foresaw that other countries might also call themselves with similar names – made the preemptive move of putting the definitive article in its name. It calls itself “The Gambia”! The kicker? When Portugal ruled it, it was called “A Gambia” !!!

Next round of studies … capitals of all those countries. This is going to be much more difficult since there is unique shapes and locations to visually remember like I could for the countries.

Bill Hubbard, what can I say – 3 different airlines, 6 flights, 4 different cities this week. You know who to blame for one more puzzle 🙂

Anybody who works out the answer, feel free to post the answer only in the Comment section. Send your logic as a personal message to me. Do not write your logic in the Comments section.

Now to the puzzle.

In a Polynesian island, girls are highly preferred as a child. This has led to a strange practice over the years among couples who are trying to have a baby. If they have a baby boy, they keep trying to have another baby in the hope that it will be a girl. If it is a baby girl though, they stop having any more babies. Of course, given any birth, the probability of having a baby boy or baby girl is half and half. So, they keep having more babies as long as they are all boys and stop moment they have a girl

As a result, there are couples who have one girl, couples who have one boy and one girl, couples who have two boys and one girl, couples who have three boys and one girl (and the girl is always the last baby they have) but no couple with two girls (or more).

Here is the question: Over a longer period of time, what is the likely ratio of boys and girls in the island?

In a class there were 40 students with roll numbers 1 thru 40. One day, the teacher got them all to sit around in a circle sequentially in the order of their roll numbers (1 thru 40). (Of course 40 sat next to 39 on one side and 1 on the other). She then gave a wand to student number 1. What the student had to do is turn towards the next student (which would be #2) and tag him/her with the wand. Upon tagging, the tagged student steps back and is out of the game and the wand is then handed to the next student – which would be student #3 in this case

Now student #3 does the same thing – tags student #4 who steps back and is out of the game and then the wand is handed to #5.

This keeps going on and on (in circles) till only one student is left.

Can you figure out which student was the last one left?

A friend of mine from Australia sent me this problem yesterday. It turns out to be a very interesting puzzle. See if you can get it. Feel free to send in your answers or attempts in the Comments section and I will try to respond.

In a horse race, 25 horses show up to win the gold, silver and bronze medals. Unfortunately for the organizers, there are only 5 tracks available – which means you can race only 5 horses at a time. The owners/jockeys agree that their horses will have to run multiple times to decide the first, second and third ranks. You can assume that a horse can run any number of times and always retains the same speed anytime it runs.

Here is the question: What is the minimum number of races you have to have to decide the gold, silver and bronze medalist?

Imagine this… I am on a 15 hour flight from Doha to Atlanta. There is a TV screen with a lot of movies but I do not watch movies. There are my favorite shows like Big Bang Theory, Friends etc but how many times can you see the same 10 episodes? Remember, I had to take a 15 hour flight going to Doha too. And I do this multiple times a year.

So, I was lazily looking into the progress of the plane on the map of the globe. It was showing on the globe where we were and our trajectory. Notice the picture on the top half. As you can see, we were somewhere around the New Foundland area in Canada.

Here is the problem:
I was trying to ascertain roughly where the north pole was in that map. Just to see how close did we go to the north pole. The problem is in this map, all of Greenland and the Arctic area is shown as one white blob.

I also want to let you know that the screen is a smart one like you have in iPad. You can use one finger to go left and right and using two fingers, you can make the globe rotate (on any axis – depending on how you swipe both fingers). As an example, I used my two fingers and slid them up and a little to the left. As you can see in the picture in the lower half, the world rotated on a horizontal axis and rotated to the left. You can notice how North America moved up and then the North pointer in the compass turned by 90 degrees.

The point is, using the two fingers, you can turn the globe on any axis as you want (going thru the center of the earth).

Using this, can you pinpoint where the North Pole is?

Do not write the answer in the Comments section. If you get the answer, simply message me on FB or write in the Comments section that you got it (without actually giving away the answer).

Can you come up with a 8 digited number where the digits are 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4 and the following are true:
There are exactly 4 digits between the two “4”s in the number.
There are exactly 3 digits between the two “3”s in the number.
There are exactly 2 digits between the two “2”s in the number.
There is exactly 1 digit between the two “1”s in the number.

So, 12344321 cannot be an answer since there are 6 digits between the “1”s, 4 digits between the “2”s etc etc etc.

What is the number? (Hint: There are two answers)

Sitting at the motorbike center (bike getting serviced), I am bored enough to see if I can bore you with one more puzzle to get the weekend rolling ….

There is a contest to judge the smartest couple of them all. Teams of husbands and wives show up for the contest and are soon read out the rules…

Each couple will be taken to a separate room by two officials. Each room will have two tables in diagonally opposite corners. The couple will be separated in the room and asked to go sit at the two tables in the two corners with their backs to each other. From that distance, they will not be able hear or see what is going on in the other table. Under no circumstances can any of the couple utter any sound. If they do, they would be automatically disqualified. Next to each table sat one of the two officials.

The husband and the wife will be given a dice (all dice are perfect dice – one sixth probability for each side). At the sound of a large gong, they will independently roll their own dice on their own table. And note whether they have an even face up or an odd face up. (Odd means 1, 3 or 5). Now, on a piece of paper, each have to write what they think came up on the OTHER table – odd or even. Once both have written their guesses, the two officials will shout out what was written.

If at least one of them guessed correctly about the other table, they continue. If both got it wrong, they will be escorted out of the room and eliminated from the event.

The last couple standing (actually sitting at their tables 🙂 ) wins the event.

So those were the rules.

After all the rules were explained, the officials allowed each couple to talk for a few minutes in case they wanted to come up with a plan and then were escorted to their rooms for the competition to begin.

The smartest couple had devised a way such that they would always win. What strategy did they use?

Note that this is not a trick question like whispering or passing hand messages etc. They were really smart and came up with a way to never get escorted out.

If you know the answer / figured it out, please send me a personal message. I will respond there and also announce your name in the common forum.

There are five adjoining rooms – linearly arranged (from left to right). You know there is a mouse in one of those rooms. You also know that the mouse, every night moves to the adjoining room – either left or right. It does not stay in the same room two days in succession – meaning it will definitely move. However, it is completely random whether it will go left or right – unless, of course it is in one of the end rooms in which case, it has to go to the other side.

Now, you are allowed to open any one random room in the morning. If the mouse is there, you can trap it and catch it. But if you do not find it, you are not allowed to go to other rooms. You have to come back the next day and open any room you want again (including the one you opened to today – totally your choice).

What is the strategy you will use (of targeting rooms to open each morning) to eventually catch the mouse?

This can be a very simple problem or a very confounding problem depending on the approach you take to solving it…

In a merry go round for kids in the mall, a kid rider observed “Two thirds the number of kids ahead of me added to three eighths the number of kids behind me add up to the total number of kids on this merry go round”.

How many kids were there in the merry go round?