TO MY STUDENTS: When you visit this webpage, email me with your solution
and, if you are correct, I'll give you a Bonus Point. (Bonus Points are a
way to improve your grade.) New Challenge of the Week questions are usually
posted on Monday and I'll accept solutions through Thursday. I'll post the
correct solution the following weekend.
CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK: Nov. 30 - Dec.
To be announced
CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK: November 23-27:
Three Logic Puzzles
1. How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to
you, even if it doesn't bounce off anything? There is nothing attached to it,
and no one else catches or throws it back to you.
2. An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant
city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower wins.
After wandering aimlessly for days, the brothers ask a wise man for guidance.
Upon receiving the advice, they jump on the camels and race to the city as
fast as they can. What did the wise man say to them?
3. A square medieval castle on a square island is under siege. All
around the castle there is a square moat 10 meters wide. Due to a regrettable
miscalculation the raiders have brought footbridges, which are only 9.5
meters long. The invaders cannot abandon their campaign and return empty-
handed. How can the assailants resolve their predicament?
SOLUTION:
1. throw it UP
2. switch camels
3. put one footbridge diagonally across a corner of the moat and place a
second footbridge at the midpoint of the first one; the other end of the 2nd
footbridge will reach the island
