Alt.brain.teasers FAQ
INDEX
Welcome
Etiquette/rules
Adding an ASCII drawing to your post
Haddock slamming
Frequently asked Puzzles
Tips
Links
Colophon
WELCOME
Welcome to the Alt.brain.teasers Frequently Asked Questions. Alt.brain.teasers is a
newsgroup with a good-humoured structure, which can be characterised by its informal
discussions and replies, often on a first-name basis. There are no strict rules. However,
there are some unwritten rules (conveniently written out for you below) which are just a
matter of common courtesy between the visitors to the newsgroup.
To Faq Index
ETIQUETTE/RULES
If you have an original puzzle and you want others to try it, it is a good idea to
post it here. But if you read or hear a puzzle you would like to post, it's best to read
the FAQ first:
o Do not post binary files (pictures) or
MIME attachments. Many of the news-readers used by the newsgroup readers cannot read
binary files or make a real mess of them. Also HTML posting should be avoided. In other
words plain text only!
o Read the newsgroup for a week or so, to familiarise yourself with
the workings of this newsgroup.
o
When you reply to posted puzzles, always quote the initial puzzle or question
so others can follow what it is you're commenting on.
o
When posting a solution to a puzzle, it's greatly appreciated if you insert
15 blank lines and the word SPOILER between the quoted question and your answer. This is
done to make sure that other readers do not accidentally see the solution before they have
a chance to try the puzzle themselves.
o
Before replying to a post you should check to see if the entry has been
cross-posted. It is a good thing to delete those newsgroups that have no bearing on the
puzzle posted.
o If someone starts a flamewar, it
is best to ignore that post all together rather than reply to it - even if you think
he/she needs putting straight. Such posters are immune to your complaints, and even thrive
on them.
o If you are new in the wonderful
world of newsgroups, it is best to also read news.announce.newusers
which outlines some general newsgroup manners and tradition.
o If you’re looking for a solution to a puzzle, you
could visit the alt.brain.teasers Archive at http://www.creatievepuzzels.com/
. The Archive has a search engine which allows you to enter search strings to find a
specific puzzle in the Archive pages.
To Faq Index
ADDING AN ASCII DRAWING TO YOUR POST
Sometimes you may want to use a drawing to explain a question or an
answer. Since the posting of binaries is not allowed, you have to add an ASCII drawing. To
help you Carl Ginnow, a fellow puzzler, wrote a simple but very cool ASCII-editor, which
you can use if you like. You can find it at http://www.microprizes.com/public/TextDraw.htm
To Faq Index
THE HADDOCK
SLAMMING
In 1999/03/18, Paul J. Hider,
a regular puzzler at "alt.brain.teasers", tired of reading the same old puzzles
again and again, proposed to give HADDOCK as answer to all oldies. This in the hope that
new posters would read the newsgroup for a few weeks before posting a puzzle that is very
old, and thus boring for the regulars.
This has now grown into a sport. When an unsuspecting newbie posts an oldie, he or she
gets a haddock slammed. Don't get mad about it, because it's not personal. It's just a
harmless fish, unlike the sharks you might receive in other NGs (not at rec.puzzles) -
they can bite your head off.
Note that "the Haddocking" is alt.brain.teasers specific and that at rec.puzzles
they have their own way of letting people know the error of their ways, although I have
seen people there use haddock too, just for the halibut.
To Faq Index
FREQUENTLY
ASKED PUZZLES
- Gry puzzle
- 12 coins
- Monty Hall
- Probability that both are girls?
- Fork in the road
- Einstein’s logic puzzle
- Three children, age product of 36
- 17 Minute bridge crossing
- The five Hats
- The Missing Dollar/Pound
- Gas, Water & Electricity
- Three Light Bulbs
- Count the number of 'F's
- Language Equations or Ditloids
To Faq Index
1. Gry puzzle.
1a. There are words that end in "gry". Angry is one and hungry is another. What
is the third word. Everyone uses it every day and everyone knows what it means. If you
have been listening, I have already told you what the word is. What is it?
Answer|list
1b. Angry and hungry are two words that end in '-gry'. There are three words in the
English language. What is the third word? Everyone knows what it means and everyone uses
it every day. Look closely and I have already given you the third word. What is it?
Answer|list
2. 12 coins
You have 12 coins, one of which is counterfeit. The counterfeit is indistinguishable from
the rest except that it is either heavier or lighter (but you don't know which). How can
you determine which coin is the counterfeit in 3 weighings on a balance scale?
Answer1|Answer2|list
3. Monty Hall
You are a participant on "Let's Make a Deal". Monty Hall shows you three closed
doors. He tells you that two of the closed doors have a goat behind them and that one of
the doors has a new car behind it. You pick one door, but before you open it Monty opens
one of the two remaining doors and shows that it hides a goat. He then offers you a chance
to switch doors with the remaining closed door. Is it to your advantage to do so?
Answer|list
4. Probability that
both are girls?
If a person has two children, and truthfully answers yes to the question "Is at least
one of your children a girl?", what is the probability that both children are girls?
Answer|list
5. Fork in the road
/ truth
Two men stand at a fork in the road. One fork leads to Heaven; the other fork leads to
Hell. One of the men always answers the truth to any yes/no questions asked of him, the
other always lies. Can you find a question that will allow you to determine the road to
Heaven?
Answer|list
6. Einstein’s
logic puzzle
There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person with a different
nationality. These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of
cigar and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar
or drink the same beverage. One of the five persons owns a fish, who is it?
Clues:
*The Brit lives in the red house.
* The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
* The Dane drinks tea.
* The green house is left of the white house.
* The green house's owner drinks coffee.
* The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
* The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
* The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
* The Norwegian lives in the first house.
* The man who smokes blends lives direct next to the one with cats .
* The man with horses lives direct next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
* The owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer.
* The German smokes Prince.
* The Norwegian lives direct next to the blue house.
* The man who smokes blend has a direct neighbour who drinks water.
Answer|list
7. Three children, age product of 36
Lisa and Frank are in front of Frank's house, and they're talking about the ages of
Frank's three daughters. Frank says : "If you multiply their ages, you will get
36." Lisa says: "You told me too little, give me another clue." Frank:
"OK, if you add their ages, you will find the number of my house." Lisa (after
some thought): "I still can't work it out, tell me more." Frank: "The
eldest is blond." Can you help Lisa find the ages of the girls, and can you
work out the number of the house?
Answer|list
8.
17 Minute bridge crossing
Four men are walking in a forest. They come to a path. They must all get to the other
side, but only two (two maximum) can travel at the same time (so no dragging anyone or
anything). It is night, so they require a flashlight but there is only one flashlight. The
four men are of differing physical strength, one man can walk the distance in 1 minute,
the second in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes and the fourth man in 10 minutes. How do
the men all get across in 17 minutes.
Answer|list
9.
The five Hats
There are 3 men in a room, all seated in the same direction, so that the in the rear can
see the two heads in front of him, the one in the middle can see only the one head in
front of him, and the one in the front can see no one. There are no mirrors or obvious
tricks involved here.
A man walks into the room with 5 hats. Three of the hats are red and two are green. He
tells the men that he will place a hat on each of their heads, and they will have no
obvious way of knowing which colour hat they have, i.e. they can't look up and see the
colour of the bill etc. He puts a hat on each of the men's heads. Unbeknownst to them, he
places a red hat on every head and does not let then see the colour of the two remaining
hats.
He walks up to the man in the back and asks him if he knows what colour hat was placed on
his head. He thinks a minute and says he has no idea. The man walks to the one in the
middle and asks the same. The man thinks a minute and responds with the same, he has no
idea. The man walks to the man in front that can see no one. He asks if he knows what
colour he placed on his head. The man in front stands up and says that he knows without a
doubt, that his hat is red.
Now, assuming that all three men are logical, intelligent reasoning men, how could the one
in front have known that his hat really was, indeed, red?
Answer|list
10.
The Missing Dollar/Pound
Three farmers went to town for a meal. They all chose the menu of the day, which cost ten
pounds. After the meal they each paid the waitress 10 pounds. Back in the kitchen, the
owner told her that the total price was only 25 pounds. Before the waitress went back to
the farmers, she put 2 pounds in her own pocket. She explained that they had paid too much
and refunded each farmer 1 pound. Happily, everything turned out fine, because each farmer
had paid 10 minus 1, i.e. nine pounds. Three times nine plus the two pounds in the
waitress's pocket makes exactly 29 pounds. Where did the last pound go?
Answer|list
11. Gas, Water & Electricity
There are three houses A, B and C. All of these three houses need the utilities gas,
water and electricity. Can you connect all three houses to all three sources without
allowing them to cross each other?
Answer|list
12. Three Light Bulbs
A scientist uses 3 lamps to illuminate experiments in
his laboratory. They are currently turned off and, unfortunately, the switches for each of
them are off and in a different room, from where you cannot see into the lab. He visits
the room with the switches once, does as he pleases with the switches, then goes back to
his laboratory. Without anyone else's help he is then able to identify exactly which light
switch turns on which lamp. So how does he do it? And can you do it with four or five
light bulbs?
Answer
for three|list
13. Count the number of 'F's (in the following
text)
FINISHED
FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS |
Answer|list
12. Language Equations or Ditloids
Many times we get question about where to find a list
of these type of puzzle. Today is your lucky day, because we have such a list. Go to
'Puzzle Summary' on the lefthand window click it and then choose 'Language'. Then look for
Language Equations or click here.
To Faq Index|list
SOME
TIPS
On how to make up your own puzzles - rebuses, anagrams, odd trivia
Making up your own puzzles is a guaranteed method of escaping a haddocking. ABT
contributors often use one of the following tools for inventing puzzles:
a) Anagrams - make up anagrams of a
series of related words / songs / film titles etc. Anagrams can be extremely hard to solve
unless there is some theme.
b) Rebuses - Use letters, numbers and
symbols to encode words or phrases. If you think the answers are hard to find - add the
number of letters; e.g. GEGS
(9,4) = Scrambled Eggs.
c) Odd trivia - Put it into a quiz if
its funny or you think some people might know the answers. If the trivia is really
obscure, try adding multiple choice answers.
To Faq Index
MAILING
LISTS WITH YOUR MIND IN MIND
--- Riddleaday, to subscribe simply send an empty email to
subscribe@riddleaday.com
--- To subscribe: e-mail maiser@mail.otherwhen.com
with the message:
subscribe MindBender
--- HoadWorks: to subscribe go to http://www.hoadworks.com/
Wordly Wise mailing list
--- Paul Sloan's Lateral thinking Forum: http://www.lateralpuzzles.com
Alt.brain.teasers Archive: Creative Puzzles http://www.creatievepuzzels.com/
Archive van classic and original puzzles posted on alt.brain.teasers.
Alt.brain.teasers FAQ in HTML at http://www.creatievepuzzels.com/spel/speel1/framfaq.htm
Rec.puzzles newsgroup news:rec.puzzles
The Dutch newsgroup news:nl.hobby.puzzels
The Italian newsgroup news:it.hobby.enigmi
The French newsgroup news:fr.rec.jeux.enigmes
The German newsgroup news:de.rec.denksport
To Faq Index
COLOPHON
A.b.t - FAQ, established, 14 Oct 1999
This FAQ list is maintained by Hagar Hagarson, (E-mail),
and will be posted monthly. Comments are appreciated!
To Faq Index
NOTHING is greater than God! |
To main