Difficulty: Expert

Unknown Author

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A Broken Circle

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Expert Tags: Featured

There are N points on a circle. If we draw all the chords connecting these points and no three of them intersect at the same point, in how many parts will the interior of the circle get broken?

For example, when N is equal to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, we get 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 parts respectively.

SOLUTION

The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is not 2ᴺ⁻¹, but 1 + N(N-1)/2 + N(N-1)(N-2)(N-3)/24.

In order to see that, we start with a single sector, the interior of the circle, and keep successively drawing chords. Every time we draw a new chord, we increase the number of parts by 1 and then add 1 extra part for each intersection with previously drawn chords.

Therefore, the total number of parts at the end will be:

1 + the number of the chords + the number of the intersections of the chords

Each chord is determined by its 2 endpoints and therefore the number of chords is N(N-1)/2.

Each intersection is determined by the 4 endpoints of the two intersecting chords and therefore the number of intersections is N(N-1)(N-2)(N-3)/4!.

Unknown Author January 13, 2022

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A Short, Brutal Riddle

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Riddle

Difficulty: Expert

Left alone, I’m a word with five letters.
I’m honest and fair, I’ll admit.
Rearranged, I’m of no use to trains.
Again, and I’m an overt place, warm and well lit.

What am I?

SOLUTION

The answer is LIAR. After rearranging the letters, you can get RAIL – important for trains, or LAIR – a dark, hidden place. Since the riddler is a liar, the resulting words are exactly the opposite of his descriptions.

Source:

Puzzling StackExchange

Roland August 13, 2021

2 Comments

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Sum Up to 15

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Expert Tags: Featured

Tango and Cash are playing the following game: Each of them chooses a number between 1 and 9 without replacement. The first one to get 3 numbers that sum up to 15 wins. Does any of them have a winning strategy?

SOLUTION

Place the numbers from 1 to 9 in a 3×3 grid so that they form a magic square. Now the game comes down to a standard TIC-TAC-TOE, and it is well-known that it always leads to a draw when both players use optimal strategies.

Unknown Author July 25, 2021

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David Copperfield

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Expert Tags: Featured

David Copperfield and his assistant perform the following magic trick. The assistant offers a person from the audience to pick 5 arbitrary cards from a regular deck and then hands them back to him. After the assistant sees the cards, he returns one of them to the audience member and gives the rest one by one to David Copperfield. After the magician receives the fourth card, he correctly guesses what card the audience member holds in his hand. How did they perform the trick?

SOLUTION

Out of the five cards, there will be (at least) two of the same suit; assume they are clubs. Now imagine all clubs are arranged in a circle in a cyclic manner – A, 2, 3, … J, Q, K (clock-wise), and locate the two chosen ones on it. There are two arks on the circle which are connecting them and exactly one of them will contain X cards, with X between 0 and 5. Now the assistant will pass to David Copperfield first the clubs card which is located on the left end of this ark, will return to the audience member the clubs card which is located on the right end of it and, with the remaining three cards, will encode the number X. In order to do this, he will arrange the three extra cards in increasing order – first clubs A-K, then diamonds A-K, then hearts A-K and finally spades A-K. Let us call the smallest card in this order “1”, the middle one “2” and the largest one “3”. Now, depending on the value of X, the assistant will pass the cards “1”, “2” and “3” in the following order:

X=0 ⇾ 1, 2, 3
X=1 ⇾ 1, 3, 2
X=2 ⇾ 2, 1, 3
X=3 ⇾ 2, 3, 1
X=4 ⇾ 3, 1, 2
X=5 ⇾ 3, 2, 1

In this way David Copperfield will know the suit of the audience member’s card and also with what number he should increase the card he received first in order to get value as well. Therefore, he will be able to guess correctly.

Unknown Author July 22, 2021

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Gods of Truth

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Deduction

Difficulty: Expert

You encounter three Gods in a room – the God of Truth, the God of Lie and the God of Uncertainty. You don’t know which one is which, but know that the God of Truth always says the truth, the God of Lie always says the lie and the God of Uncertainty sometimes lies and sometimes says the truth. You can ask in succession each of the Gods a unique question, to which they can reply only with “Yes” or “No”. However, their responses will be in their native language – “Da” or “Ne”, and you don’t know which translation to which answer corresponds. Your task is to figure out what questions to ask the Gods, so that will recognize which one of them is the God of Truth, which one is the God of Lie and which one is the God of Uncertainty.

SOLUTION

Label the gods with numbers – 1, 2, and 3.

First, ask god 1 “If I ask you whether god 2 is random, would you say ‘Da’?”. If he responds “Da”, then god 3 is not the god of uncertainty. If he responds “Ne”, then god 2 is not the god of uncertainty. In both cases we will be able to find a god which is not the god of uncertainty, let without of generality that is god 3.

Next, ask god 3 “If I ask you whether you are the God of Lie, would you say ‘Da’?”. If he says “Da”, then he is the God of Truth. If he says “No”, then he is the God of Lie.

Finally, ask god 3 whether god 1 is the God of Uncertainty and conclude the identities of all gods.

Raymond Smullyan April 19, 2021

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