Want some answers for a change? All right, how would you pick up a shoe lace by its two ends between your two index fingers and thumbs of your two hands and then make a knot in it without letting go? Answer: Cross your hands before picking it up. Next. There are two cans of water. You have to pour them into a larger barrel in such a way so that you can tell which water came from which can. How? Answer: Freeze them. If you’re already groaning around the place and want to gross out totally instead then can you think of any industry that uses a dis-assembly line? Answer: Meat packing industry.
All right here are now some questions for some change. Write any number in words and count the letters. Write down that number in words again. Count the letters again. Write down again. Count again. You’ll always end up in 4. Why?
And, finally want some change for some answers; a sort of a helpful thought to see you through for the rest of the day now? If nitrogen is lighter than oxygen then why hasn’t it accumulated at the top of the atmosphere?
THROUGHPUT
(The almost correct continuation of the grocer’s balance scales puzzle goes something like what Lipika Muthu, geelipm@gmail.com didn’t went for or go to whichever is grammatically correct.)
The question was: “The weight on one pan of a grocer’s balance is 10% more than the other. What is the angle of shift?” The answer is, following Lipika Muthu’s line of thought, the shift would be 10% of the angle of the straight line, which is 18 degrees but that would be the total shift. Since a grocer’s balance is pivoted at the centre, the shift would be 5% on each side meaning 9 degrees -- Aniruddha Rao, aniruddharao741@gmail.com
(The second problem was: “You are given two lead cubes, one of which is a little larger. You have to cut a hole through one of them without destroying the continuity of its four sides so that the other cube can be passed through it. However, on weighing them later you find that the larger cube is still the heavier of the two. WTF?
This is about a cube through a hole in a bigger cube. (No, that was not stated in the problem. Please read it carefully. -- MS) -- Abhay Prakash, abhayprakash@hotmail.com
You cut a hole in the SMALLER cube, and pass the larger cube through it. Prince Rupert’s Cube is the largest cube which can pass through a unit cube, and it is approximately 6% larger. -- Saifuddin S F Khomosi, Dubai (For people who didn’t understand what the hell that meant go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAHcZGjKVvg and be prepared to have your head turned inside out. Go on try it; it’s not going to kill you. I think.
(The third one was about kangaroo words with joey synonyms inside.)
Kangaroo words and the joey within them in order of appearance: (1) Abide - BIDE; (2) Allocate – ALLOT; (3) Asseverate – ASSERT (Also AVER); (4) Astound – STUN; (5) Calumnies – LIES; (6) Catacomb – TOMB; (7) Depository – DEPOT; (8) Destruction – RUIN; (9) Encourage – URGE; (10) Honourable – NOBLE; (11) Illuminated – LIT; (12) Ineffective – EFFETE; (13) Revolution – REVOLT; (14) Scoundrel – CON (No it’s CUR); (15) Transgression – SIN; (16) Umpteenth – TENTH (No, it’s NTH. TENTH is a specific number.) (17) Unsightly – UGLY. – Dr Ramakrishna Easwaran. drrke12@gmail.com (Yes, Ramakrishna Bhogadi, rambhogadi@gmail.com you had all correct but way too many spelling mistakes. Heard of spellcheck? -- MS)
(Here are the first four more who were not so lucky for the following reasons::Third time correct, millions of spelling mistakes, not following order of words as they appear, husband being of not much help either, answering seven months too late, unreadable, answering seven years too late, #12 EFFETE is better. Here they are: Punyashalila Sahu, niveditasahu1975@yahoo.in; Hema Parthasarathy, hemapartha133@gmail.com; Dr A K Bhat, docakbhat@gmail.com; Seshagiri Row Karry, srkarry@yahoo.com; )
BUT GOOGLE THIS NOW
Saw this online in a Twitter page. A population starts with a single amoeba. For this one and for the generation thereafter, there is a probability of 3/4 that an individual amoeba will split to create two amoebae and a 1/4 probability that it will die without producing an offspring. What is the probability that the family tree of original amoeba will go on forever? – (Submitted by Babu R, baabu.r@gmail.com)
Sharma is a scriptwriter and former editor of Science Today magazine.(mukul.mindsport@gmail.com)