A Day Trip

A man drives 1 mile to the top of a hill at 15 mph. How fast must he drive 1 mile down the other side to average 30 mph for the 2-mile trip?

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Stairway to Seven

You hate visiting your girlfriend because there’s no elevator in her apartment building. And now she’s moved from the fourth floor to the seventh. How many times longer does this make your ascent?

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Open and Shut

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Every room in my house has an even number of doors.

Prove that the house has an even number of exterior doors.

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Track Meet

One train leaves Los Angeles for New York at 60 mph.

At the same time, another train leaves New York for Los Angeles at 40 mph.

What is the distance between them one hour before they meet?

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Who’s Laughing Now?

A.A. Bennett offered this puzzle in the American Mathematical Monthly of May 1937:

A car with n (n > 2) passengers of different speeds of mental reaction passes through a tunnel and each passenger acquires unconsciously a smudge of soot upon his forehead. Suppose that each passenger

(1) laughs and continues to laugh as soon as and only so long as he sees a smudge upon the forehead of a fellow passenger;
(2) can see the foreheads of all his fellows;
(3) reasons correctly;
(4) will clean his own forehead when and only when his reasoning forces him to conclude that he has a smudge;
(5) knows that (1), (2), (3), and (4) hold for each of his fellows.

Show that each passenger will eventually wipe his own forehead.

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Formal Speech

A puzzle by Isaac Asimov:

What word in the English language changes its pronunciation when it is capitalized?

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The Mail Plane

A motorcyclist was sent by the post office to meet a plane at the airport.

The plane landed ahead of schedule, and its mail was taken toward the post office by horse. After half an hour the horseman met the motorcyclist on the road and gave him the mail.

The motorcyclist returned to the post office 20 minutes earlier than he was expected.

How many minutes early did the plane land?

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A Geometry Problem

A poser from 1821:

Mathematicians affirm that of all bodies contained under the same superficies, a sphere is the most capacious: But they have never considered the amazing capaciousness of a body, the name of which is now required, of which it may be truly affirmed, that supposing its greatest length 9 inches, greatest breadth 4 inches, and greatest depth 3 inches, yet under these dimensions it contains a solid foot?

What is this body?

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