To follow up on the last map puzzle….

What do you think this world map represents? Think in terms of what ties US, Burma and what I think is Liberia…

This puzzle comes after I read something my friend Shilpa Daiya had posted.

Look at the following map. Can you guess what the map is about? Can you guess what the colors stand for?

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.