Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev session

Random irrelevance that just didn't fit into other forums. Talk about anything.

Moderator: Talkative People

Post Reply
User avatar
k1net1k
Chaos Rift Maniac
Chaos Rift Maniac
Posts: 563
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 2:58 pm
Contact:

Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev session

Post by k1net1k »

I heard these riddles today and both stumped me. (I have since heard the answers)

1) There are three lightbulbs in a closed room. You are outside of the room and you can only open the door once. There are three switches outside of the room which correspond to the 3 lightbulbs. Although they are not in any specific order.

Edit: When you have finished making your switch selection you may then walk down and open the door to the room with the lightbulbs

Edit 2: You cant see any light coming in or out of the room

How can you tell which switch belongs to each light bulb?


==================================

2) An insurance salesman calls to the door of a house. He asks the lady about her family and wishes to know the ages of her children. She informs him that she has 3 children but does not wish to disclose information about them to a complete stranger. She says she will buy the insurance from him if he can guess their ages.


So he asks for a clue.

She tells him that: The product of their ages is 36

He comes back and asks for another clue.

She then tells him that the number of the house next door is the sum of their ages

He goes outside, looks at the number next door, and comes back. He asks for a final clue.

The lady then tells him that her eldest child plays the piano.

How old are the children ?

====================================

You can use {spoiler}{/spoiler} to hide your answer but with ] brackets
Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
testing spoiler
User avatar
MadPumpkin
Chaos Rift Maniac
Chaos Rift Maniac
Posts: 484
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:48 pm
Current Project: Octopia
Favorite Gaming Platforms: PS1-3, Genesis, Dreamcast, SNES, PC
Programming Language of Choice: C/++,Java,Py,LUA,XML
Location: C:\\United States of America\Utah\West Valley City\Neighborhood\House\Computer Desk

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by MadPumpkin »

Through use of a little bit of logic thinking, I'm pretty decent at logic puzzles and riddles, and that in the past I've used a method similar to this when doing circuitry, I'm pretty sure I've solved the first one easily. I don't want to say though, for people who might want to try themselves. The second one I'm not so sure on, since one loosely stated fact of the puzzle, makes my answer false.

EDIT: Never mind! got it! It was the fact that it made my answer false altogether, that shows the correct answer xD.
While Jesus equipped with angels, the Devil's equipped with cops
For God so loved the world that he blessed the thugs with rock
Image
Image
Image
User avatar
TheAustech
Chaos Rift Cool Newbie
Chaos Rift Cool Newbie
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 4:38 pm
Current Project: BeatTapper
Favorite Gaming Platforms: PC
Programming Language of Choice: C++, C#
Location: Maryland
Contact:

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by TheAustech »

k1net1k wrote: An insurance salesman calls to the door of a house. He asks the lady about her family and wishes to know the ages of her children. She informs him that she has 3 children but does not wish to disclose information about them to a complete stranger. She says she will buy the insurance from him if he can guess their ages.


So he asks for a clue.

She tells him that: The product of their ages is 36

He comes back and asks for another clue.

She then tells him that the number of the house next door is the sum of their ages

He goes outside, looks at the number next door, and comes back. He asks for a final clue.

The lady then tells him that her eldest child plays the piano.

How old are the children ?
I forgot the answer, but I heard this yesterday on the Day9 daily. I know that's not relevant, but did you hear this riddle from this as well?
User avatar
k1net1k
Chaos Rift Maniac
Chaos Rift Maniac
Posts: 563
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 2:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by k1net1k »

TheAustech wrote: I forgot the answer, but I heard this yesterday on the Day9 daily. I know that's not relevant, but did you hear this riddle from this as well?
Sure did :)
User avatar
superLED
Chaos Rift Junior
Chaos Rift Junior
Posts: 303
Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2010 10:56 am
Current Project: Engine
Favorite Gaming Platforms: N64
Programming Language of Choice: C++, PHP
Location: Norway

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by superLED »

I couldn't figure it out, so I found the answer on the web.
But you forgot an important point, that you can do anything when you are inside the room.
User avatar
k1net1k
Chaos Rift Maniac
Chaos Rift Maniac
Posts: 563
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 2:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by k1net1k »

superLED wrote:I couldn't figure it out, so I found the answer on the web.
But you forgot an important point, that you can do anything when you are inside the room.
On the other hand, it didnt say you couldnt either. The key to the riddle and the theme was "assumption"
Otherwise where do you stop. eg "You cannot drill a hole through the wall, you cannot ask your friends to call you from the other room"
User avatar
superLED
Chaos Rift Junior
Chaos Rift Junior
Posts: 303
Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2010 10:56 am
Current Project: Engine
Favorite Gaming Platforms: N64
Programming Language of Choice: C++, PHP
Location: Norway

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by superLED »

k1net1k wrote:
superLED wrote:I couldn't figure it out, so I found the answer on the web.
But you forgot an important point, that you can do anything when you are inside the room.
On the other hand, it didnt say you couldnt either. The key to the riddle and the theme was "assumption"
Otherwise where do you stop. eg "You cannot drill a hole through the wall, you cannot ask your friends to call you from the other room"
Well, maybe I'm just stupid :p I thought that I only was able to look at the bulbs and figure it out that way :p
User avatar
ismetteren
Chaos Rift Junior
Chaos Rift Junior
Posts: 276
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:13 pm

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by ismetteren »

I already know the answer to the first one.

Concerning the second one:

Why don't we have a spoiler tag? I have tried to make the text the same color as the background, so highlight it if you want to read it :)

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
From looking at the possible ways you can get 36 as the product of 3 divisors of 36, and by eliminating the ones where there is no single eldest child(since we know from the piano fact there is one) I have narrowed it down to 6 possibilities. From those 6 i guessed on the one in which the age distance seemed most normal. My guess is the their ages are 2, 3 and 6.


Now, i will consult google to find out what the answer is, i'm probably way off. :)
Image ImageImage Image
User avatar
szdarkhack
Chaos Rift Cool Newbie
Chaos Rift Cool Newbie
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri May 08, 2009 2:31 am

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by szdarkhack »

ismetteren wrote:I already know the answer to the first one.

Concerning the second one:

Why don't we have a spoiler tag? I have tried to make the text the same color as the background, so highlight it if you want to read it :)
Actually the answer is a bit different. I used the same trick, so highlight below if you want to see the answer.

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
The fact that the insurance salesman required additional information after looking at the sum of the ages must mean that more than one possibilities arise. The only combinations that have this property are (9,2,2) and (6,6,1). Note that they both sum up to 13 and their product is 36. Here, you use the last clue: The mother said that her *eldest* kid plays the piano. This means that 1 kid is older than the other 2, so the only answer is (9,2,2). So, what you missed in your answer is the fact that the sum was not enough to specify the ages.
User avatar
k1net1k
Chaos Rift Maniac
Chaos Rift Maniac
Posts: 563
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 2:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by k1net1k »

There is some spoiler tag, but I cant think how to do it.
Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
The key hint with the second one is that there are 2 possible answers, but the fact that the guy came back asking for a 3rd clue means it had something to do with the number of the house next door.
Last edited by M_D_K on Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: dude it's [spoiler]secret stuff[/spoiler]
User avatar
Lisergishnu
Chaos Rift Newbie
Chaos Rift Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 8:30 pm
Programming Language of Choice: C++
Location: Villa Alemana, CL

Re: Riddles - Warm your brain up for today's awesome dev ses

Post by Lisergishnu »

So this is how the riddles were originaly told...
Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
A friend of mine posted the second one on Facebook BUT he forgot the part where the guy checked the number next door, so you can probably guess how hard it was to figure it out since the key to the problem was implicit.
Post Reply