I have a friend in office who posts some amazing facts on his white board. I have always marveled at some of the crazy facts he knows. Here is one:

1. A rye plant’s root is around 400 miles (650km) long. That is just unbelievable!!!

Here are a couple that somebody else had told me.

2. A crocodile’s digestive juices are so strong that they can digest a nail !! That is why it does not matter that they cannot chew – or for that matter even move their tongue!!!

3. That thing we call “paper money”? – it is not made of paper. Most currency bills in this world are made from – get this – cotton!!! (sometimes a mix of linen and cotton)

Here is one for you to guess and then perhaps Google.

There is only one mammal in this world that cannot jump. Can you guess which one? (BTW, regardless of what that movie title would have you believe, “white men” is NOT the answer 🙂 )

After flying to San Francisco on Monday, flying back to Atlanta on Tuesday and then to DC on Wednesday, I have no doubt that I will sleep off on tomorrow’s (Thursday) early morning flight. So, I figured I might as well post the puzzle tonight and go to sleep.

Pardon the picture – I put it quickly on my iPad app. But here is how it goes.

Six coins are arranged in two rows like in the picture on the left. In three sliding moves, you have to get the circular arrangement on the right. The rules are – (*) you can slide only one coin at a time (*) you cannot “push” other coins away when you move a coin – and of course no lifting the coin off the surface either (*) here is the interesting one – when you move a coin, you have to make sure that when you leave it in its new position, it has to touch two other coins.

A teacher in a class of small kids asked them to categorize all the letters of the alphabet by a certain rule. Most students came up with the following correct answer which has three categories:

1. B

2. A, D, O, P, Q, R,

3. C, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Can you guess what was the rule that the teacher had given?

So Nikita and I were having dinner together and asking each other puzzles. One we came up with was “How many countries can you name that starts and ends with the same letter”? Each and every one that we came up with – Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria… were with “A”. We could not find a single non-“A” country. Can you? (meaning country names that start and end with the same letter and it is not A)

Case A: Imagine you have a rope tightly wound around a basketball. How much more rope do you need for the rope to be one foot away from the surface of the basketball at all times? (as if it is tightly wound around an imaginary ball that has radius one foot more than the radius of the basketball). I do not need an exact answer now. Just imagine it.

Case B: Now imagine you have a rope tightly would around the equator of the earth (what, about 25,000 miles or so?). How much more rope do you need for the rope to be one foot away from the equator at all times? (as if the radius of the earth had increased by a foot). I do not need an exact answer now either. Just imagine it.

Now for the puzzle:
In which case do you think you need more rope – Case A or Case B? Any rough idea by how much?

I know it is only Tuesday but I am on my flight back home and there are two of my friends who have sent me puzzles that I thought can be posted here…

This one comes courtesy of Amrith Kumar. I sent him an answer – but I have not received confirmation whether I am right or not. So, we might have to wait till he publishes the answer.

Think of all the 4 digit numbers ( leading 0s count). Essentially 0000 to 9999. Now pick only those numbers where the first two digits add up to the same number as the last two digits. So 1533 qualifies as does 0312 and so on.

You have to prove that the total of all such numbers (if you add them up) is divisible by 3 as well as 11.

Long coast to coast flight now 🙁 Here is something to keep you busy as I take a nap 🙂
Once again, send me personal message on FB if you have the answer – not in the Comments section.

Last week was my elder daughter (Natasha)’s fifteenth birthday. She had a bunch of school friends over for dinner and sleepover. The shrill decibel levels with a dozen teenagers at our house was enough for the dog to sleep most of the time outside our house 🙂 But I digress. One of her friend’s mom has a cupcake business and we were glad to give her some business. Her standard packagings were 6 cupcakes to a packet, 9 cupcakes to a packet and 20 cupcakes to a packet. We ordered 60 and she delivered 3 packets of 20 each.

Which leads me to my question – what is the maximum number of cupcakes we could have ordered that she would not have been able to fit neatly in her packets? (e.g. 17 cupcakes would be impossible to neatly fit in her packets – there will be some leftovers. I am looking for the highest number that would not fit in her 6/9/20 packet combinations)

Flying back from St. Louis. Thought of a puzzle that incorporates my love for running in it..

There are 4 runners in a race. How many possible outcomes can be there in that race. Be aware that there can be ties. Which means two or three or even all of them might finish the race at the same time.

To explain it further, if A B C and D are the runners, one outcome could be D came first, A and C came joint second and B came last. This would be different from D coming first , A coming second, C coming third and B coming last. Got it?

For people who is reading this on FB and not on my blog, always send me your answers by personal message. I just made this up – so I do not know the answer myself, but I have an hour of flight left to figure it out 🙂

Thursday evening flying back home. Puzzle time.
Put 10 coins in four rows – top row has four coins, next has three, next has two and bottommost has one (will look a bunch of grapes – see the picture).
Now by moving only THREE coins, you have to get the bunch of grapes to look like upside down. (so, top row has one coin, next has two….)
This is not a trick question. The arrangement is exactly the same – but upside down.