Late evening, Nikita decided to go for a swim and I went out to give her some company. Instead of actually jumping in, I stayed land side and started reading up on some geography trivia. Some of the things I learnt just blew my mind away. See how many of these you already know. After answering them, Google up and find out the answers!!

1. Which city first reached a population of 1 million?

2. Which country has the maximum number of pyramids?

3. What fraction of the Nile river’s total length flows thru Egypt?

4. In which continent is the driest place on earth?

5. There is a sea that has no coastline. Can you name it?

I understand the problem is attributed to Pythagoras. (I am not sure of the veracity of the story). In any case, my friend Prodipto posted this in our school Whatsapp group. Try it…

In a party that had 100 guests, the first guest was given 1% of a large cake. The next guest got 2% of what was left. And the next got 3% of what was left…. on and on… the 99th guest got 99% whatever was left at that time and the 100th guest got the final (100% of) leftover.

Which guest got the largest piece?

…..

Adding the answer here…

…..

Found an interesting one from my friend Prodipta Chatterjee. Took me a few minutes till I realized that the trick is to not think of it as other problems of similar descriptions… Try it…

From a bag that has 26 bills (of three denominations – $1, $2 and $5), you pick out 20 of them blindfolded. You are guaranteed (probability = 1) that you will have at least one $1 bill AND two $2 bills and five $5 bills.

You have to solve for the following question: How much total money is there in the bag?

Take the word “MONOTONE”. In how many different ways can you jumble up all the letters such that M will never come after E?

Can you guess the following? You can Google for the answers – you do not need to post them… But first try to guess

1. What is the oldest toy? If you think hard, you might be able to guess this.

2. What is the second oldest toy? For the life of me, I would not have guessed this right.

3. In England, it is against the law to not provide whom or what with toys? You are going to laugh your head off once you find the answer.

4. Speaking of which, in France it is a crime to sell dolls without this. Can you guess?

5. Which toy originated in gym classes in Australia, was banned in Indonesia, also banned by Japan from playing in public and the Russians deemed it to be “symbol of emptiness of American culture”?

6. Finally, can you guess who is the largest distributor of toys? You can get this if you think about it for a second.

Now check the internet for the answers…

I had posted this once last year, I think….

a. Gin : Phillipines!!! (Say what???)
b. Beer : Czech Republic
c. Rum : India!!!!!!
d. Whiskey: France (what?????)
e. Vodka: Russia (ok, this I get)
f. Wine: Vatican City (this also, I can understand)
g. Tequila: US (not Mexico!!!)
h. Milk: Finland
i. Tea: Turkey (very surprised it is not China)
j. Coffee: Finland (most years) / Netherlands (2020)

Headed to DC on a Thursday. Which always reminds me of those puzzles I used to post every Thursday on my way out of DC. Posting puzzles after a long time. And since one good turn deserves another, I will post two…

First a warmup one…

1. Assuming you are as old as me (which is about 50), what is the probability that you have seen in your life somebody (human being) with more than average number of legs?

a) Certainly
b) Very likely
c) As likely as not (50-50)
d) Unlikely
e) Impossible

Now for an interesting one…

2. In my running trail, there is a spot where I have to climb up ten stairs. At any step, I can jump up one stair or two stairs. How many different ways can I climb up those ten stairs?

If you are reading this on Facebook, just send me personal message with your answer – I will let you know if you got it and post your name as somebody who got it right. There might be some time gap – I have a long night in front of me today.

Getting bored in the loooooong flight back. Suddenly remembered an email exchange I had with my friend Mita this week. It was actually a puzzle. In all honesty, I had heard a puzzle somewhat like that, so I was able to get it. Figured I will post it here.

The challenging part of the puzzle is its incredible simplicity. There are no catches in the puzzle. But the simplicity is bound to confuse readers. So here it goes…

“John called Mary. Mary called Tom. John is married but Tom is not”.

From the above, can you say whether the following statement

“A married person called an unmarried person” is

(a) Definitely True
(b) Definitely False
(c) Insufficient information to say whether True or False.

Send me personal message instead of putting in Comments and I will respond.