The 10 clues given below refer to English films and the stuff in brackets is the year and number of words in the original titles.
For instance “Magical month in spring (1990; 2)” would work out as the film Enchanted April. Or “All 27 feet (2000; 4)” would be The Whole Nine Yards. Get it? Do the rest now.
Some deserts are like this too (2013; 1); Jallikattu blues (1980; 2); Definitely not East of Eden (1961; 3); Imagine if Charles and his sister had never spoken (1991; 5); Into the heart of darkness (1979; 2); When the unthinkable thunk (1997; 1); Ciao (2016; 1); Turning blue (1990; 3); If you cut yourself (2007; 4); You can’t put your finger on it but she’s different (1998; 4).
THROUGHPUT
(The fogged out one was: “There are three clocks with all telling different times: 11:55, 12:25 and 1:05. Each of them is a different number of minutes out compared to the actual time and, on an average, they are 30 minutes out. What’s the actual time?”)
The second clock is 30 minutes from the first and the third 70 minutes. If we assume the first clock is y minutes off the actual time, we get (3y + 100)/3 = 30. Ie, y is 10/3 minutes or 200 seconds slower to the actual time. The actual time is 11:58:20. -- Saishankar Swaminathan, saishankar482@gmail.com
There are two answers: 11h58m20s and 12h58m20s. If A is the actual time and x, y, z are the deviations of A from the given times then we have two sets of equations A = 11:55 ± x, A = 12:25 ± y and A= 13:05 ± z .Solving these two sets of equations and taking x + y + z = 90m, we get A = 11:58:20 or 12:58:20. -- Hemalatha T, hemalatha1956@gmail.com
(The second problem was: “What’s the profession of the man who left home one day and made three left turns and met a person with a helmet on?”)
Though on the first reading, the riddle appears mystifying, the solution strikes you when you try visualising the three left turns and the encounter with the man with a helmet. The man in question is a baseball player by profession. He runs around the baseball field, also called the baseball diamond, leaving the home plate at a run after hitting the ball thrown at him by the pitcher, taking a left turn at each base and returning to the home plate. The man with the helmet he encounters at the home plate is the catcher. -- Balagopalan Nair K, balagopalannair@gmail.com
The man is a baseball player. He made a home run and made three left turns around the bases and met the umpire, who was wearing a helmet. -- K Narayana Murty, k_n_murty@yahoo.com (Yes, Venkateswaran R, venkateswaranjanaki@gmail.com and Murali S L, murali_sl@yahoo.co.in, you got it right too.)
(The third one was: “There’s a 7 and 5 litre jar and lots of water. What’s the least number of steps needed to measure exactly 4 litres of water if the 7 litre jar has to be filled first? And starting from there how do you give out a further 3 litres?”)
1. Fill the 7L; 2. Fill the 5L from the 7L; 3. Empty the 5L; 4. Pour the 2 litres into the 5L; 5. Fill the 7L; 6. Top up the 5L from the 7L. And you get exactly FOUR litres left in the 7-litre jar. Now: 1. Empty the 5L; 2. Pour the 4 litres from the 7L into the 5L; 3. Fill the 7L; 4. Top up the 5L from the 7L; 5. Empty the 5L; 6. Fill the 5L from the 7L; 7. Empty the 5L; 8. Pour the 1 litre from the 7L into the 5L; 9. Fill the 7L; 10. Top up the 5L from the 7L. This leaves exactly THREE litres in the 7 litre jar. -- J R K Rao (email ID withheld on request) (Yes Aniruddha Rao, aniruddharao741@gmail.com and Sambasivam S V, svssivam@yahoo.com you also got it right.)
How about this variation? (Wait a minute Dr Ramakrishna Easwaran, drrke12@gmail.com, let’s just get out of the way first) . . .
BUT GOOGLE THIS NOW
1. There are three jars of 8L, 5L and 3L. The 8L jar is full of milk. There are no other vessels or measuring instruments of any kind and no more milk to add and nothing to be discarded. You have to dispense exactly 4L in the least possible number of steps.
2. A skateboarder skates a kilometre in three minutes with the wind, and returns in four minutes against the wind. What’s his speed for a kilometre if there’s no wind?
Sharma is a scriptwriter and former editor of Science Today magazine.(mukul.mindsport@gmail.com)