PUZZLING PRODUCTS

 

Mindbending Puzzles
61–70

 

 

 

61.  9 INTO 10

Bill and Ben each have 9 matchsticks. Without breaking the matches Bill is able to make his into 10 but Ben makes his into 28. How?

SOLUTION

 

 

 

62. SNOOKERED

15 snooker balls are assembled into a triangle as shown. By mistake, nine red and six colored balls have been used instead of all red balls. The values of the balls are red 1, yellow 2, green 3, brown 4, blue 5, pink 6 and black 7. If the sum of the values of the balls in each of the bottom three rows is 10, what is the color of the ball marked X?

SOLUTION

63. TERRIBLE TRIO

Complete the grid, using just
 three different whole numbers, performing the calculations in
order, left to right.

SOLUTION

64. PENNY PROBLEM

Why are 1929 English twopenny pieces worth more than 1928 English twopenny pieces?

SOLUTION

65. TIME CRISIS

How many minutes is it before
12 noon if 20 minutes ago it
was three times as many minutes past 10 a.m.?

SOLUTION

66. CHRISTMAS DECORATION

Mary has two more branches to decorate on her Christmas tree. She intends to hang three balls on each branch – a different combination of balls on each branch – but the weight of the balls must balance so that the branches stay level. If a gold ball weighs 4g, a red ball weighs 2g and a silver ball weighs 1g, how does she decorate the branches?

SOLUTION

67. SUNFLOWER POWER

Flora’s garden has three types of sunflower – large yellow, medium orange and small red. The yellow sunflower has one flower head with 12 petals, the orange one has three flower heads each with 14 petals and the red sunflower has five flower heads each with 13 petals. She has more of the small red plants than either of the others. If there is a total of 617 sunflower petals in her garden, how many of each plant does she have?

SOLUTION

68. HOP HAPPY

In its daily routine a small frog
 hops around the lily pads in a square pond looking for available food always starting and ending in the same places. The frog can only hop from one pad and never retraces its steps. In how many different ways can it do this?

SOLUTION

69. YOUNGEST IN THE FAMILY

Four generations of the Peters family are posing for a photograph. The different ages in complete years
of the five family members, which total 230, make an arithmetic progression (i.e. they increase by
the same amount each time). The difference in age between two of them is 51. How old is the youngest?

SOLUTION

70. TRIUMPHANT TRUMPETS

A brass band is marching
forward in five columns and four rows. The band includes four trumpeters who are scattered among the procession but with one in each row and situated so that only one trumpeter is equidistant from the other three. Before and after the band turns left the trumpeter in the right-hand column at the time is in front of the nearest trumpeter to him. Where are the trumpeters situated?

SOLUTION