The Letter T Puzzle

Print out the page and cut out the shapes. Once you have the shapes try and assemble them into a letter T as shown. If you get stuck try the button at the bottom of the page

Assemble the T as Shown:

"Make a Square" Puzzle

Print out the page and cut out the shapes. Once you have the shapes try and assemble them into a square as shown. If you get stuck click on the link at the bottom of the page.

"Make a Square" Puzzle - Solution

Assemble the Square as Shown:

There has been a mistake at the apple farm

Someone has mixed up the apples. Read carefully what has happened. Can you find a way to help solve the problem.

There are 10 baskets containing apples. There are various amounts of apples in each basket ranging from 10 to 20. 9 of the baskets contain apples weighing 4 ounces each. 1 of the baskets contains apples weighing 5 ounces each. All the apples look the same. The equipment you have is a set of scales and an empty basket. It is late and the lorry is waiting to take the apples to market. You only have time to make one measurement using the scales.

Can we find out which basket contains the 5 ounce apples?

Pencils and Jars Puzzles

Puzzle 1
I have some pencils and some jars. If I put 4 pencils into each jar I will have one jar left over. If I put 3 pencils into each jar I will have one pencil left over. How many pencils and how many jars?

Puzzle 2
Again I have some pencils and some jars If I put 9 pencils into each jar I will have two jars left over If I put 6 pencils into each jar I will have three pencils left over How many pencils and how many jars?

Stuck ?
The first one is quite easy. The second question is more involved. You will probably need to create an algebraic expression for each statement in the problem. Solve the equations and you have your answer.

Solution Pencils and Jars

Straight to the answer Of course problem 1 can be solved simply by trying some different numbers However, if we want to solve problem 2 it is a bit more tricky. What we will do here is show how to solve the first problem using some algebra. Once you have looked at this bit of maths try and apply the same principles to problem 2. The first stage is to read the question carefully. Problem 1 I have some pencils and some jars. If I put 4 pencils into each jar I will have one jar left over If I put 3 pencils into each jar I will have one pencil left over How many pencils and how many jars? There are two distinct statements. Let's look at statement one first. When there are four pencils in each jar there will be one jar left over In words the number of jars is equal to the number of pencils divided by four plus another one. This can be expressed using algebra. j = (p 4) + 1 Now look at statement 2. When there are five pencils in each jar there will be one pencil left We have created an formula to calculate how many Jars there are. We now need to calculate how many pencils there are We can say that the number of pencils will be equal to the number of jars times three plus another one. using algebra again we have p = 3j + 1 We have ended up with two linear equations. There are two ways to solve these. Graphically and using simultaneous equations. The approach taken here will be using a graph. First rearrange the formula to make j the subject. j = (p 4) + 1 (equation 1) j = (p 1) 3 (equation 2)

Plotting these on a graph using x=p and y=j;

If we find the intersection point we have our answer

And that is it there are 16 pencils and 5 Jars.

The Letter F Puzzle

Print out the page and cut out the shapes. Once you have the shapes try and assemble them into a letter F as shown. If you get stuck try the button at the bottom of the page

Assemble the F as Shown

Who Owns The Fish?

There are five houses in a row and in five different colours. In each house lives a person from a different country. Each person drinks a certain drink, plays a certain sport, and keeps a certain pet. No two people drink the same drink, play the same sport, or keep the same pet.

The Brit lives in a red house The Swede keeps dogs The Dane drinks tea The green house is on the left of the white house The green house owner drinks coffee The person who plays polo rears birds The owner of the yellow house plays hockey The man living in the house right in the centre drinks milk The Norwegian lives in the first house The man who plays baseball lives next to the man who keeps cats The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who plays hockey The man who plays billiards drinks beer The German plays soccer The Norwegian lives next to the blue house The man who plays baseball has a neighbour who drinks water.

Who Owns The Fish?

This was given to me as an exercise in logic puzzles. I think it is a great puzzle. According to the worksheet I was given this puzzle is attributed to Albert Einstein. He claimed that 98% of the world could not work it out. Can you?

colour house....yellow.........blue......red.........green......white nationality.......norwegian...dane......brit.........german...swede drink...............water..........tea........milk........coffee.....beer plays..............hockey.....baseball....polo........soccer.....billiards pet..................cats..........horses....birds....... .....dogs

Who Owns the Crocodile

There are 5 girls in a long row in maths. Each girl has a favourite chocolate bar, colour, pet, hobby, and would like to go on a certain holiday. All the girls like different things. Your task is to solve the following clues - "who owns the crocodile"

Jo likes the Wispa Bite The person with the hamster likes swimming Hannah eats Dairy Milk Jessica is on the left of Georgina Lucy is the first on the left The first person on the right likes swimming The person who eats Milky Bars owns a horse The person in the middle eats Dairy Milk Jessica likes green The person on the left of the middle wants to go to Tobago The person who wants to go to the Maldives likes lilac The person who likes Wispa Bites sits next to the person who wants to go to Florida The person who likes pink wants to go to Florida the person who sits first on the left likes lilac The girl that likes blue owns a puppy The person who likes skiing sits next to the person who has a hamster The girl on the right of the girl who likes tennis likes horse riding The girl next to the girl who likes Milky Bars likes Boost The girl who likes purple wants to got to Canada The girl who likes Crunchies owns a rabbit The girl who likes skiing sits next to the girl who plays ten-pin bowling Jessica wants to go to Australia

Lucy........Crunchies....Rabbit......Tennis..........Lilac......Maldives Jo...........Wispa Bites...Puppy.....Horse Riding..Blue......Tobago Hannah....Dairy Milk... ..Ten Pin..........Pink.......Florida Jessica.....Milky Bars...Horse......Skiing............Green...Australia Georgina..Boost..........Hamster..Swimming......Purple...Canada So, that would mean that Hannah must own the Croc !!

The Lazy Gardener

It takes two gardeners 8 days to mow a lawn. One is lazy and one is energetic. The energetic one would only take 12 days to mow it on his own. How many days would the lazy gardener take to mow the lawn on his own?

The Lazy Gardener Puzzle - Solution

(Read the Lazy Gardener Puzzle)

The energetic gardener would be able to mow the lawn in twelve days. In eight days he would be able to mow 8/12 of the lawn.

This leaves 4/12 of the lawn left for the lazy gardener to mow. He takes the full eight days to do this so he mows only half as quickly as the energetic one. He would therefore need 24 days to mow the lawn on his own. Twice as long as the energetic one.

Chicken Crossing
A man has to get a fox, a chicken, and a sack of corn across a river. He has a rowboat, and it can only carry him and one other thing. If the fox and the chicken are left together, the fox will eat the chicken. If the chicken and the corn is left together, the chicken will eat the corn. How does the man do it?

The Solution:
The man and the chicken cross the river, (the fox and corn are safe together), he leaves the chicken on the other side and goes back across. The man then takes the fox across the river, and since he can't leave the fox and chicken together, he brings the chicken back. Again, since the chicken and corn can't be left together, he leaves the chicken and he takes the corn across and leaves it with the fox. He then returns to pick up the chicken and heads across the river one last time.

Census
A census taker approaches a house and asks the woman who answers the door "How many children do you have, and what are their ages?" Woman: "I have three children, the product of their ages are 36, the sum of their ages are equal to the address of the house next door." The census taker walks next door, comes back and says "I need more information." The woman replies "I have to go, my oldest child is sleeping upstairs."

Census taker: "Thank you, I now have everything I need." What are the ages of each of the three children?

The Solution:
The reason the census taker could not figure out the children's ages is because, even with knowing the number on the house next door, there were still two possibilities. The only way that the product could be 36 and still leave two possibilities is if the sum equals 13. These possibilities being 9, 2 and 2 and 6, 6 and 1. When the home owner stated that her "Oldest" child is sleeping she was giving ths census taker the fact that there is an "oldest." The children's ages are therefore 9,2 and 2.

Notes
I sometimes get asked why other possible solutions are not shown. Answer: because there aren't any more! A key element of this puzzle is that the census taker needed more information! For example, another way to factor 36 is 12, 3 and 1. The sum is 16. If the number next door had been 16, the census taker would not have needed to come back for more information. Another factoring is 6, 3 and 2. The sum is 11. Once again, the census taker would not have needed to come back if that had been the number next door. And nor will 4, 3 and 3 work because its sum of 10 is also unique. Hope that makes sense!