Mathematical Puzzles With Answers For Adults

Mathematical Puzzles

These puzzles (most of them old classics) from various sources can be used with pupils who finish classwork early. Most of the questions were chosen with enthusiastic, bright early teenagers in mind.

Some of the puzzles are also appropriate for class work - an initial worked example on the board will help a lot.

There are a few trick questions. Some questions can be quickly answered if you chance upon the right approach, but the 'long' solution isn't too arduous. Several of the questions are best answered by writing a computer program. Some are shown here.

Scales and Vessels

How can you measure out exactly 4 litres of water from a tap using a 3 litre and a 5 litre bucket?
Ans

3litre 5litre -----  ------ 0      5 3      2 0      2 2      0 2      5 3      4

A 24 litre bucket is full of lemonade. 3 people want to have equal amounts of it to take home, but they only have a 13 litre, a 5 litre and an 11 litre bucket. How do they do it?
Ans

24 13 11 5 ---------- 24  0  0 0  11 13  0 0   6 13  0 5  6  2 11 5  8  0 11 5  8  5 11 0  8 13  3 0  8  8  3 5  8  8  8 0

The following shorter solution was provided by Jacob Melzer

24 13 11 5 ---------- 24  0  0 0 11 13  0 0 11  8  0 5 11  0  8 5 11  5  8 0 3  13  8 0 3   8  8 5 8   8  8 0

A Queen (78kg), the Prince (36kg) and the King (42kg) are stuck at the top of a tower. A pulley is fixed to the top of the tower. Over the pulley is a rope with a basket on each end. One basket has a 30kg stone in it. The baskets are enough for 2 people or 1 person and the stone. For safety's sake there can't be more than a 6kg difference between the weights of the baskets if someone's inside. How do the people all escape?
Ans
```
Basket 1    Basket 2 --------------------- Stone up    Prince down King down   Prince up nothing up  Stone down Queen down  Stone and King up nothing up  Stone down Prince down Stone up nothing up  Stone down King down   Prince up Stone up    Prince down            
```
One of 9 otherwise identical balls is overweight. How can it be identified after 2 weighings with an old balance?
Ans: Weigh 3 against 3, then you'll know which group of 3 contains the heavy ball. Pick 2 balls from that group and weigh one against the other.
One of 27 otherwise identical balls is overweight. How can it be identified after 3 weighings with an old balance?
Ans: Weigh 9 against 9, then 3 against 3.
How many ways can you put 10 sweets into 3 bags so that each bag contains an odd number of sweets?
Ans 15 solutions. The first trick is to realise that if you put one bag inside another, then sweets in the inner bag are also in the outer bag. The only workable configuration is to put one bag inside another and leave the third alone. The answers can be obtained using the following octave script, where bag b is inside bag a
```
for a=0:10   for b=0:(10-a)     c=10-a-b;     if (rem((a+b),2)==1 && rem(b,2)==1 && rem(c,2)==1)       fprintf('a=%d b=%d c=%d\n',a,b,c)     end   end end            
```

Ferries

A farmer has to take a hen, a fox, and some corn across a river. The farmer can only take one thing across at a time. Unless the farmer's present the fox will eat the hen and the hen eat the corn. How is it done?
Ans
```
FARMER AND HEN -> <- FARMER  FARMER AND FOX -> <- FARMER AND HEN FARMER AND CORN -> <- FARMER  FARMER AND HEN ->            
```

3 missionaries and 3 obediant but hungry cannibals have to cross a river using a 2-man rowing boat. If on either bank cannibals outnumber missionaries the missionaries will be eaten. How can everyone cross safely?
Ans

CANNIBAL and MISSIONARY -> <- MISSIONARY CANNIBAL and CANNIBAL -> <- CANNIBAL MISSIONARY and MISSIONARY -> <- CANNIBAL and MISSIONARY MISSIONARY and MISSIONARY -> <- CANNIBAL CANNIBAL and CANNIBAL -> <- CANNIBAL CANNIBAL and CANNIBAL ->

2 men and 2 boys need to cross a river in a boat big enough for 1 man or 2 boys. How do they do it?
Ans

BOY and BOY -> <- BOY MAN -> <- BOY BOY and BOY -> <- BOY MAN -> <- BOY BOY and BOY ->

SMP and CSE 1974 extend this to cover the case of n men.

Picking Captains

6 girls pick a captain by forming a circle then eliminating every n'th girl. The 2nd girl in the counting order can choose n. If she wants to be captain what's the smallest n she should pick?
Ans: 10 Here's an answer in python
```
for step in range(2,50):    girls=[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]    here=0    while len(girls)>1:      here=(here+step-1)% len(girls)      del girls[here]    if girls[0] == 2:       print step       break            
```
12 black mice and 1 white mouse are in a ring. Where should a cat start so that if he eats every 13th mouse the white mouse will be last?
Ans: If the white mouse is 1st in the counting order, the cat should start at the 7th mouse : hint - start anywhere, see how far out you are, then make the necessary correction
20 passengers are in a sinking ship. 10 are mathematicians. They all stand in a ring. Every 7th climbs into the lifeboat which can only hold 10 people. Where should the mathematicians stand in the ring?
Ans: 1 4 5 7 8 9 14 15 16 17
30 passengers are in a sinking ship. They all stand in a circle. Every 9th passenger goes overboard. The lifeboat holds 15. Where are the 15 lucky positions in the circle?
Ans: 1 2 3 4 10 11 13 14 15 17 20 21 25 28 29

The last of these questions can be answered using the following octave script
howmanyatstart=30; howmanyatend=15; first=1; leap=9; x=first-1; a=1:howmanyatstart; while (length(a)>howmanyatend) x=rem(x+leap,length(a)); a(x+1)=[]; end a
By changing the initial values in this script you can solve questions 2 and 3. Here's the Python solution
howmanyatstart=30 howmanyatend=15 first=0 leap=9 x=first a=range(1,howmanyatstart+1) while len(a)>howmanyatend: x=(x+leap)%len(a) del a[x] for i in range(0,len(a)): print a[i]

Incomplete Sums

Some worked examples are in J.A.H. Hunter's "Mathematical Brain Teasers".

Each letter represents a different digit

            SEND      +MORE      -----      MONEY

Ans: 9567+1085 = 10652

This sum uses all the digits

            28*    +**4    ----    ****

Ans: 289+764 = 1053

This subtraction sum uses all the digits from 1 to 9.

            9 * * - * 4 *   -----   * * 1

Ans:927 - 346 = 581

O represents odd digits E represents even digits

            EEO   xOO -----  EOEO  EOO -----  OOOOO

Ans: 285x39

P represents prime digits

            PPP   xPP -----  PPPP PPPP ----- PPPPP

Ans: 775x33

If each letter in the calculation below represents a unique digit from 0 to 9, how many solutions are there?

            SIX x TWO ----- DOZEN

Ans: 6
A brute-force C++ solution is

#include <iostream> using namespace std;  int S,I,X,T,W,O,D,Z,E,N;  int numberOfSolutions=0; bool check() {   if ( (S*100+I*10+X)*(T*100+W*10+O) == D*10000+O*1000+Z*100+E*10+N) {     cout << "A solution is " << S << I << X << "*" << T << W << O           << "=" << D << O << Z << E << N << endl;     return true;   }   else      return false; }  int main() {   for (S=0;S<10;S++) {  if (S==0) continue; // no leading zero    for (I=0;I<10;I++) {if (I==S) continue;     for (X=0;X<10;X++) {if (X==S or X==I) continue;      for (T=0;T<10;T++) {if (T==S or T==I or T==X  or T==0) continue; // no leading zero       for (W=0;W<10;W++) {if (W==S or W==I or W==X or W==T) continue;        for (O=0;O<10;O++) {if (O==S or O==I or O==X or O==T or O==W) continue;         for (D=0;D<10;D++) {if (D==S or D==I or D==X or D==T or D==W or D==O or D==0) continue; // no leading zero          for (Z=0;Z<10;Z++) {if (Z==S or Z==I or Z==X or Z==T or Z==W or Z==O or Z==D) continue;           for (E=0;E<10;E++) {if (E==S or E==I or E==X or E==T or E==W or E==O or E==D or E==Z) continue;            for (N=0;N<10;N++) {if (N==S or N==I or N==X or N==T or N==W or N==O or N==D or N==Z or N==E) continue; 	    if(check()) numberOfSolutions++;            }           }          }         }        }       }      }     }    }   }   cout << numberOfSolutions << " solutions" << endl; }

Some more additions

                THE  TEN  MEN ---- MEET

Ans: 490+407+107=1004

```
SLOW SLOW  OLD ---- OWLS              
```
Ans: 4712

                SAL   SEE   THE  SUEZ ----- CANAL

Ans: 920+977+547+9876=12320

                FIVE   FIVE   NINE ELEVEN ------ THIRTY

Ans: 4027+4027+5057+797275

What 5 digit number (where the digits are all different and none of them is zero) multiplied by 4 gives an answer where the digits are those of the original number but in reverse order?
So
```
              ABCDE * 4 = EDCBA            
```
Let's start at the ends.
- A can only be 1 or 2, because A*4 < 10. E*4 divided by 10 must leave a remainder of A. It can't leave a remainder of 1, so A=2
```
                  2BCDE * 4 = EDCB2                
```
- If E*4 divided by 10 leaves a remainder of 2, then E has to be 3 or 8. The E on the right-hand side must be 8 or 9. Putting those 2 constraints together, E=8
```
                  2BCD8 * 4 = 8DCB2                
```
- B*4 must be < 10. If it was more, then the first digit of the right-hand side wouldn't be 8. B can't be 2 because we've used that already. So B=1
```
                  21CD8 * 4 = 8DC12                
```
- To get the 1 that's on the right-hand side, D*4+3 when divided by 10 must leave a remainder of 1. D can't be 2 (2 has been used already) so D=7
```
                  21C78 * 4 = 87C12                
```
- 4*C +3 when divided by 10 must give the answer 3 and a remainder C, so C=9
So the answer's 21978

The following C++ code might help with the other problems

#include <vector> #include <iostream> #include <cstdlib> #include <algorithm> using namespace std;  // This C++ program uses brute force to solve problems like //        THE +  //        TEN +  //        MEN //       ---- //       MEET // // To solve a problem  // * List the words in the thewords variable // * Set the leadingzeroesallowed, digitsunique, findallsolutions variables to true or false, //   depending of what you want.  // * Change the first line of the check routine to match the calculation. //    The words are referred to as thewords[0], thewords[1], etc so  //      if (eval(thewords[0],v) + eval(thewords[1],v) + eval(thewords[2],v) == eval(thewords[3],v)) { //    means "if word1 + word2 + word3 equals word4 ..." // * Re-compile and run the code.  // The code's not designed to be fast or easy to read, It solves // THE +  TEN + MEN =  MEET almost instantly. SEND + MORE = MONEY takes over a minute.  string thewords[]={"THE","TEN", "MEN", "MEET"};  bool leadingzeroesallowed=false; bool digitsunique=true; bool findallsolutions=false;  string all=""; int numberofwords;  void initialise() {   numberofwords=sizeof(thewords)/sizeof(*thewords);   for (int i=0;i<numberofwords;i++)       all=all+thewords[i];   sort(all.begin(), all.end());   string::iterator it = unique (all.begin(), all.end());   all.resize( it - all.begin() ); }  int eval(string s, vector<int>v) {   int i=s.length();   int factor=1;   int sum=0;   while(i--) {     for (int j=0;j<all.length();j++)       if(s[i]==all[j]){         sum=sum+factor*v[j];                 break;       }     factor=factor*10;   }   return sum; }  void check(vector<int>v) {   //The next line may need changing   if (eval(thewords[0],v) + eval(thewords[1],v) + eval(thewords[2],v) == eval(thewords[3],v)) {     if(digitsunique) {       vector<int>v2=v;       sort(v2.begin(), v2.end());        vector<int>::iterator it = unique (v2.begin(), v2.end());       v2.resize( it - v2.begin() );       if (v2.size() != v.size()) 	  return;     }        if(not leadingzeroesallowed) {       for (int j=0;j<all.length();j++) {         for (int k=0;k<numberofwords;k++)   	 if(thewords[k][0]==all[j]){ 	  if (v[j]==0) 	    return;          }       }     }     cout << "Answer!" << endl;     for (int i=0; i<v.size() ; i++) {       cout << all[i] << " = " << v[i] << endl;     }     if (not findallsolutions)        exit(0);   } }  void recurse(vector<int>v) {   if(v.size() >10) {     cout  << "recursion level exceeded"  << endl;     exit(0);   }   if (v.size()== all.length())     check(v);   else     for (int i=0;i<10;i++){       vector<int>v2=v;       v2.push_back(i);       recurse(v2);        } }  int main() {   vector<int> v;   initialise();     for (int i=0;i<10;i++){        v.clear();        v.push_back(i);        recurse(v);     } }

This is a Python 3 solution

import itertools # FIVE + FIVE + NINE + ELEVEN + THIRTY thewords=["FIVE", "FIVE", "NINE", "ELEVEN", "THIRTY"] leadingzeroesallowed=False findallsolutions=False alltheuniqueletters=""   # Make a list of letters used def initialise():    global alltheuniqueletters   for i in thewords:       alltheuniqueletters=alltheuniqueletters+i;   alltheuniqueletters=list(set(alltheuniqueletters))   alltheuniqueletters.sort()  def myeval(s,vd):     i=len(s)     factor=1     mysum=0     while i>0:       i=i-1       mysum=mysum+factor*vd[s[i]]       factor=factor*10     return mysum      def check(vd):     if myeval(thewords[0],vd) + myeval(thewords[1],vd) + myeval(thewords[2],vd) + myeval(thewords[3],vd)==myeval(thewords[4],vd):          if not leadingzeroesallowed:                 for k in range(0,len(thewords)):                    if vd[thewords[k][0]]==0:                           return          print("Answer!")          print(vd)          if not findallsolutions:              exit()  initialise() options=itertools.combinations(range(0,10), len(alltheuniqueletters)) for i in options:   for j in itertools.permutations(i):       vd=dict(zip(alltheuniqueletters,j))       check(vd)

Letters

Agree on a font of capital letters.

Put the letters into sets according to line symmetry
Put the letters into sets according to rotational symmetry
Put the letters into sets according to topology
How many letters only use straight lines?
There is only one number whose English name uses as many straight lines to write as the number itself.
Think of a number. Write it out in words. Write in words the number of letters you've used (E.g. SIXTEEN-SEVEN-FIVE-FOUR). Continue do so and see what happens. Try 3 other numbers. You always end at FOUR. In german you end up at VIER.

Numbers

Alan, Bill and Chris dug up 9 nuggets. Their weights were 154, 16, 19, 101, 10, 17, 13, 46 and 22 kgs. They took 3 each. Alan's weighed twice as much as Bill's. How heavy were Chris's nuggets?
Ans: 272. Here's some octave code
nuggets=[154, 16, 19, 101, 10, 17, 13, 46, 22]; alan=nchoosek(1:9,3); [r c]=size(alan); for i=1:r alanchoice=alan(i,:); indices=1:9; indices(alanchoice)=[]; bill=nchoosek(1:6,3); [r2 c2]=size(bill); for j=1:r2 billchoice=indices(bill(j,:)); newindices=1:6; newindices(bill(j,:))=[]; chrischoice=indices(newindices); if (sum(nuggets(alanchoice))==2*sum(nuggets(billchoice))) sum(nuggets(chrischoice)) end end end
And here's a Python 3 solution
import itertools nuggets=[154, 16, 19, 101, 10, 17, 13, 46, 22] alans_triplets=itertools.combinations(nuggets, 3) for alans in alans_triplets: the_six_left=list(set(nuggets)-set(alans)) bills_triplets=itertools.combinations(the_six_left, 3) for bills in bills_triplets: chriss=list(set(the_six_left)-set(bills)) if (sum(alans)==2*sum(bills)): print(sum(chriss))

The product of 3 sisters' ages is 175. Two are twins. How old is the other one?
Ans: 7
A person has 2 bankcards, each with a 4 digit number. The 1st number is 4 times the 2nd. The 1st number is the reverse of the 2nd. What is the first number?
Ans: 8712. You could use trial and error. The smaller number must start with a 1 or a 2 (otherwise the bigger number would have 5 digits) so the bigger number must end with 1 or 2. Actually, it has to be 2, because the bigger number must be a multiple of 4. Consequently the numbers are 2**8 and 8**2. The digit after the 2 has to be small (because 4 times the number is less than 10).
Alternatively, here's an Octave program
for a=0:9 for b=0:9 for c=0:9 for d=0:9 number1=1000*a+100*b+10*c+d; number2=1000*d+100*c+10*b+a; if (number1 == 4*number2) disp(number1) end end end end end
Tom has 7 sandwiches, Jan has 5, Simon has none. They share them out equally. Simon leaves, paying for his sandwiches by leaving 12 biscuits. What's the fairest way for Tom and Jan to share out the biscuits?
Ans: 3 to Jan
A cyclist buys a cycle for 15 pounds paying with a 25 pound cheque. The seller changes the cheque next door and gives the cyclist 10 pounds change. The cheque bounces so the seller paid his neighbour back. The cycle cost the seller 11 pounds. How much did the seller lose?
Ans: 21 pounds?
Using four "4"s and common symbols (including the square root, factorial and recurring decimal symbols), make sums whose answers are 0, 1, 2....100 (See Mathematical Bafflers)

Make fractions (each using all the digits from 1 to 9) with these values 1/2, 1/3....1/9
Ans:

6729/13458, 5823/17469, 3942/15768, 2697/13485, 2943/17658, 2394/16758, 3187/25496, 6381/57429

A greengrocer was selling apples at a penny each, bananas at 2 for a penny and pears at 3 for a penny. A shopper spent 7p and got the same amount (greater than 0) of each type of fruit for each of their 3 children. What did each child get?
Ans: 1 apple, 2 bananas and 1 pear.
A woman bought something costing 34c. She only had 3 coins: $1, 2c and 3c. The shopkeeper had only 2 coins: 25c and 50c. Fortunately another customer had 2 10c coins, a 5c coin, 2 2c coin and a 1c coin. How did they sort things out?
Ans: They pool the money. The woman takes 71 (50 + 10 + 10 + 1), the shopkeeper takes 109 (100 + 5 + 2 + 2) and the customer 30 (25 + 3 + 2).
Mr and Mrs A are 120 km apart. A bee is on Mr A's nose. The couple cycle towards each other, Mr A at 25km/h and Mrs A and 15km/h. The bee dashes from Mr A's nose to Mrs A's nose and back again and so on at 60km/h. How far does the bee travel before the cyclists crash?
Ans: The cyclists crash after 3 hours so the bee flies 180km.
Pick a number. If it's even, divide by 2. If it's odd multiply by 3 and add 1. Continue this until you reach "1". Eg 3-10-5-16-8-4-2-1. Which integer less than 100 produces the longest chain?
Ans: 97 leads to a 119 link chain. The lowest number that causes a long chain is 27 (112 links).
Pick a number. Multiply the digits together. Continue until you get a single digit. What is the only 2 digit number which would require more than 3 multiplication?
Ans: 77
Starting with 1, place each integer in one of 2 groups so that neither contains a 3 term Arithmetic Progression. How far can you go?
Ans: Up to 8.
The following 2 questions use the following result - "Given integers a and b the biggest number that can't be expressed in the form ia + jb is ab - a - b."
- Apples are packed in boxes of 8 and 15. What is the biggest number of apples that would require loose apples?
  Ans: 97
- A country only has 5p and 7p coins. Make a list of prices that you could give exact money for. What is the highest prices that you couldn't give exact money for?
  Ans: 23
If D = the day (1-366) in year Y, then the day of the week can be calculated using
```
            d = D+Y+(Y-1)/4 - (Y-1)/100 + (Y-1)/400 mod7          
```
where d=1 would mean Sunday, etc. Can the first day of each century (e.g. 1st Jan 2001, 1st Jan 1901) be any day?
Ans: No. Just Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday. See "Mathematical Bafflers"
Pick 3 digits (not zero) and make 6 2-digit numbers from them. Add up all these numbers, add up all the original digits and divide the first total by the second.
Ans: 22
How many presents did the "true love" send during the 12 days of Christmas?
Ans: 364
At a fairground stall there are 3 piles of cans. You get 3 throws. You can only knock off the top can of a pile. The 2nd throw counts double, the 3rd triple. How do you get exactly 50?
Ans: 7, 8, 9

If you add the digits in the 1st, 3rd, 5th etc positions of a natural number, and get the same total as you get by summing the other digits, the number is exactly divisible by 11. For example, 17248 is a multiple of 11 because 1+2+8 equals 7+4. But the opposite isn't true - there are multiples of 11 for which the sums don't match. What's the smallest natural number for which this is so?
Ans: Here's a C++ solution

#include <iostream>  #include <sstream>  #include <string>  using namespace std;  int main() {   string s;   for (long num=11;num<10000;num+=11) {    std::ostringstream o;     if (o << num)      s=o.str();    else      s="";    int odds=0;    int evens=0;    for (int i=0;i<s.length();i++)      if (i%2)        evens+=s[i]-'0';      else        odds+=s[i]-'0';       if (odds!=evens) {      cout << num << " is a multiple of 11, but " << odds << " !=" << evens << endl;      break;    }   } }

and here's the python 2 version

for number in range(11,10000,11):   s=str(number);   odds=0   evens=0   for i in range(0, len(s)):     charval=ord(s[i])-ord('0')     if(i%2):        evens+=charval     else:        odds+=charval   if odds!=evens:      print number, " is a multiple of 11, but ", odds, " !=", evens      break;

2 people set out on a journey. One of them walks at a constant 4km/hour. The other walks at 2km/hour for the 1st kilometre, 3km/hour for the 2nd kilometre, and so on. When does the 2nd person catch up with the 1st?
After about 101 minutes.

Enumerations

Holding its hands out, palms upward a child starts counting on all its fingers and thumbs, going to and fro. If it counts up to 1982 which finger does counting end on?
Ans: (middle finger is 3 or 7 (mod8)).
You have 3 bricks, each measuring 18 x 9 x 6 cm. How many different heights can you build up with them?
Ans: 10. A solution in Octave is
length(unique(sum(nchoosek([18 18 18 9 9 9 6 6 6] ,3),2)))

How many right-angled triangles with integral sides have one side of 15?
Ans

9, 12, 15    15, 20, 25 15 112 113 8 15 17 15 36 39

Minibuses seating 10, 12 and 15 passengers can be used to convey 120 passengers. There are 5 of each size of bus. How many different ways can the buses be used so that all the ones used are full? Which way uses the least buses?
Ans
```
10 12 15 -------- 3   5  2 4   3  3     5  4            
```
Roosters cost 5 pounds, hens 3 pounds and 3 chicks cost 1 pound. Buying at least one of each type of bird how can you buy 100 birds for exactly 100 pounds?
Ans
```
Rooster Hen Chick 4        18  78 8        11  81 12        4  84            
```
A woman puts 120p on the counter. "some 4p stamps, 6 times as many 2p stamps and the rest in 5p stamps please". What does she need?
Ans: 5 4p's.
A cube is painted white and cut into 27 small cubes. How many of these little cubes are painted on i) 1, ii) 2, iii) 3, iv) 0 sides?
See SMP E for answers and developments

Geometry

9 geraniums have to be planted so that there are 3 plants in each row. How can they be planted so that there are a) 8 b) 9 c) 10 lines.
Ans:
- How many straight lines of unique lengths can you draw from dot to dot?
  Ans: 5
- How many non congruent triangles can you draw?
  Ans: 8

Miscellaneous

I have some square tiles. Half of them are black and the other ones are white. I arrange them so that the black ones form a rectangle and the white ones make a border around them one tile thick. I have no tiles left over. How many tiles do I have?
A man buys 5 cigarettes a day for 25 days. He keeps the stubs. From 5 stubs he made a new cigarette. How many cigarettes does he smoke during this period?
The bacteria in a test-tube double each minute. It is full in one hour. When was it half full?
Ans: 59 mins.
In a knockout with 39 players, how many games are played?
Ans: 39-1
In a knockout with 39 players, how many byes?
Ans: 3 (find 2**n such that 2**n>39 then express 2n-39 in base 2 and count 1's in the binary number)
A necklace is made from 4 chains each of 3 links. It costs 1p to cut a link and 2p to resolder it. How can a necklace be made for 9p?
Ans: Cut one chain into 3 links. Use these to connect up the rest.
If a crocus costs 8p, a tulip 7p and a daffodil 11p, how much does a hyacinth cost?
Hint: count the vowels and consonants
Arrange a line of 5 coins as follows
```
            Head Head Head Tail Tail Tail          
```
In 3 moves (each move consisting of turning over a pair of adjacent coins), arrange the coins so that Heads and Tails alternate.
Ans: Swop 3 and 4, 4 and 5, then 2 and 3
Town A and town B are 99 km apart. There are 98 km posts between them. On each post is the distance to A and the distance to B. On how many posts are only 2 different digits used? (for example, the post that says 'A 33, B 66' only uses 2 digits).
From SMP. 18 posts: 11, 18, 22, 27, 33, 36, 44, 45...
Clocks -
- How many times is a stopped clock correct each week?
- A clock goes at the right speed, but backwards. How many times each week does it tell the right time?

Knights

If you follow the jumps of a chess knight from word to word you can make a 20 word sentence about the ages of Sue and Sal. Sue is in her teens, so how old is Sal?
Ans: Start at Sal in the bottom row. Sal is 8 (thanks to Jenny Leppington-Clark for discussing this puzzle, and thanks to Sweta Singh for pointing out the right answer). The sentence is "SAL IS NOW HALF AS OLD AS SUE WAS WHEN SAL WAS A THIRD AS OLD AS SUE IS NOW". So let's create some variables - SueNow and SalNow are the ages now, and SueThen and SalThen are the ages X years ago. Then
SalNow = SueThen/2
and
SalThen = SueNow/3.
Also
SueNow = SueThen + X
SalNow = SalThen + X
Substituting, we get
SalThen + X = SueThen/2
and
SalThen = (SueThen + X)/3
Subtracting, we get
X = SueThen/2 - SueThen/3 - X/3
so
4X/3 = SueThen/6
and hence
8X = SueThen
So, assuming X is an integer and Sue is now a teenager, X=2 and SueThen will be 16. That makes SueNow 18 and SalNow 8.
On a 5 by 5 chessboard, a knight on the centre square would have 8 possible moves. Draw a 5 by 5 grid and put "8" in the middle square. Fill in the other squares with the number of moves that a knight would have from that square.
Draw a 5 by 5 chessboard. Put a "0" in the top left corner square. Imagine a knight there. Put a "1" in all the squares that it can reach in 1 go, a "2" in all the squares that it can reach in a minimum of 2 goes, etc, until all the squares are filled in. Which squares take the longest to reach?

Digital Displays

        _     _  _       _   _  _   _   _ | | |  _| _| |_| |_  |_   | |_| |_| |_| | |_  _|   |  _| |_|  | |_|  _|

Make a table showing how many lines are used for each digit.
While changing from 0 to 1, four bars are turned off. No new ones are turned on. Make a table of what happens as the digits change
```
            ON   OFF 0->1  0     4 1->2 ... 9->0          
```
Add up the "OFF" and the "ON" columns. What do you notice?

Palindromes

A car milometer shows 15951. After 2 hours it shows another palindromic number. How fast was the car going on average?
Pick a 2 digit number. Reverse it then add to the original number. Have you got a palindrome? If not then repeat the process. Try all the 2 digit numbers (as a class activity) (from Mathematical Bafflers).
Ans
```
Sum of digits      1-9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18  Num of additions     1  2  1  2  2  3  3  6 24  6            
```

References

"Mathematical puzzles and pastimes", A. Bakst, Princeton,N.J, 1965.
"More mathematical activities: a resource book for teachers", Brian Bolt, Cambridge University Press, 1985.
"The Corgi Book of Problems", Jameson Erroll, Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1964.
"Mathematical Bafflers", Angela Dunn, Dover Publications, 1980.
"Mathematical puzzles & diversions", M. Gardner, London, 1961.
"More mathematical puzzles & diversions", M. Gardner, London, 1963.
"Mathematical puzzles for the connoisseur", P.M.H. Kendall and G.M. Thomas, London, 1962.
"Mathematical games and puzzles", T. Rice, London, 1973.
"The Canterbury Tales", Henry Dudeney, Thomas Nelson and sons, 1949
"A freshman seminar on problem solving and algorithmic thinking", Edmund A. Lamagna, JCSC 29, 6 (June 2014)