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Hobbies

Tons of them, really, but haven't had time to enjoy any of them of-late!

Riddles and Puzzles

Hi ! This is a section for all those who enjoy this intellectual activity of solving puzzles!! I have picked these pieces from various places, almost all are the ones I solved at some time of my life, and those that I remember. There are some I simply loved. I would present answers and solution to some of these too !! Why not all ??!! Not that I don't know them (ahem ahem) but I'd really like to know how you attack the problem, and your solution. So do let me know your comments/suggestions for this section. Well, go ahead and have fun ...(and hey, don't blame me for sleepless nights ;) )

PUZZLE # 1 :

(difficult; pure logic) ...you'll hate me for this one !!

There once was a farmer with a large estate. He was old, a widower, and had two daughters. As he was nearing death, he called his lawyer and got all of his estate converted into either 9 or 16 diamonds and told him to give the daughters their share after he died. (Of course, he told the lawyer how many to give to each of them!!).One day, while on his death-bed (he knew he was gonna die!!), he called one of his daughters (lets call her "First") and told her how many diamonds her sister had got! And then called his "Second" daughter and told her how many her sister i.e. "First" had got. Then he dies.

Now each one is curious to know how many she'd received (coz they only know how much the other one has received and that the total number is either 9 or 16). So they meet once and the following conversation ensues :

First : Tell me how many I've got.
Second : No, first you tell me how many I have got.
First : OK, never mind, now I know how many I've got.
Second : Good, now even I know how many I've got.

The question is : How many diamonds were there, and how many did each of them get ??

(Hint : There is no female psychology involved, neither any emotions and stuff ... it's just a flat logic problem made dramatic !! But the sequence of dialogues is very important !!)

Joke ...

There was this small kid who was learning arithmetic, and came across this : 5 - 7 + 2 = 0. His dad, while explaining it to him said : "Suppose there are 5 men in a room. If 7 leave the room, then 2 should get in so that nobody is left in the room!"

PUZZLE # 2 :

very easy if you know it ..needs elementary knowledge of geometry ( hint hint !!)

This spherical ball of radius 10 cm is rotating at 10 rotations/sec. A triple-barreled rifle is at a distance 10 meters from this ball. It fires 3 bullets simultaneously at the ball. What is the probability that all the 3 bullets lie in one hemisphere ??

Hemisphere is, here, exactly half a sphere. The position of the rifle-barrels with respect to eact other is not significant in the problem. You assume that all the bullets hit the ball.This one was more complicated, I simplified it a bit!! Lots of hints in the wording of the problem itself.

PUZZLE # 3 :

A and B are given two numbers, n and n+1 (i.e. two consecutive numbers), not respectively, i.e. they do not know whose number is bigger. They however know that they are consecutive. Now, after every minute a beep is sounded and the girls have to say out if they know the other's number. So, who says it out first, and after how many beeps ??

Solutions not up yet, till then keep trying, and all the best :)

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Sanskrit

 Hello. This is my Marathi/Sanskrit page - well not yet. But I'll soon expand this section into a full-blown page. Here's a little trailer. To view the contents, you'll have to have on your computer Unicode (UTF-8) devanaagarii fonts installed. Check out http://devanaagarii.net for more information and the fonts. You may also have to set your browser encoding to utf-8.

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Ameya Kolarkar: ameya
Last updated on Nov 17, 2006.