2008 Puzzlers
| 12-22 | PUZZLER: A Pumping Puzzler! Burt is pumping gas at a service station in North Carolina when he notices something about the man at the next pump. Immediately Burt knows he?s not from N.C. and knows what state he is from. What did Burt observe? |
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| 12-15 | PUZZLER: When Muscles Aren't Everything In the '60s, Ray challenged his neighbor to a car race: Ray's four-speed manual transmission Saab against his neighbor's American muscle car. They raced in reverse and Ray's muscle-less car won. How'd he do it? |
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| 12-08 | PUZZLER: It's Math Time! Every two-digit number can be represented as AB, where B is the ones digit and A is the tens digit. Take this two-digit number and square it (AB x AB), and the result is a three-digit number, CAB. What is the value of C, so that AB2 = CAB? |
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| 11-24 | PUZZLER: A Brake Job by Any Other Name Just Ain't the Same A guy orders parts for an old 4-wheel-drive pickup truck. He buys brake pads, new rotors and a caliper hardware kit. But the new parts don't match the old ones. One syllable caused the mistake. What is the trucks make and last digit of the model year? |
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| 11-17 | PUZZLER: America's Favorite Pastime A relief pitcher had the following score: Innings pitched, 1. Hits, 0. Runs, 1. Earned runs, 1. Strikeouts, 1. Bases on balls, 0. So he pitched one inning, recorded 3 outs, gave up no hits or walks, and was still charged with an earned run. How? |
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| 11-10 | PUZZLER: A Classic Car Auction Thirty potential buyers attend a car auction. Ten of them bought fewer than 6 cars. Eight bought more than 7 cars. Five bought more than 8 cars and 1 buyer bought more than 9. How many of the buyers bought 6, 7, 8, or 9 cars? |
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| 11-04 | PUZZLER: Fuzzy Math A boy and his mother were doing math problems. For example, 25 + 8 and the boy answered 33. The next problem was 42 + 15. The boy said 43. When Ray saw how the boy was dressed, he understood. What was going on? |
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| 11-04 | PUZZLER: Fuzzy Math A boy and his mother were doing math problems. For example, 25 + 8 and the boy answered 33. The next problem was 42 + 15. The boy said 43. When Ray saw how the boy was dressed, he understood. What was going on? |
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| 11-04 | PUZZLER: Fuzzy Math A boy and his mother were doing math problems. For example, 25 + 8 and the boy answered 33. The next problem was 42 + 15. The boy said 43. When Ray saw how the boy was dressed, he understood. What was going on? |
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| 11-04 | PUZZLER: Fuzzy Math A boy and his mother were doing math problems. For example, 25 + 8 and the boy answered 33. The next problem was 42 + 15. The boy said 43. When Ray saw how the boy was dressed, he understood. What was going on? |
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| 11-04 | PUZZLER: Fuzzy Math A boy and his mother were doing math problems. For example, 25 + 8 and the boy answered 33. The next problem was 42 + 15. The boy said 43. When Ray saw how the boy was dressed, he understood. What was going on? |
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| 11-04 | PUZZLER: Fuzzy Math A boy and his mother were doing math problems. For example, 25 + 8 and the boy answered 33. The next problem was 42 + 15. The boy said 43. When Ray saw how the boy was dressed, he understood. What was going on? |
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| 10-27 | PUZZLER: One is the Magic Number Car odometers go from 0 to 999,999. If a car reached 999,999 miles, how many times would the number "1" appear? |
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| 10-20 | PUZZLER: The Perfect Square Dance! Sally invited 17 guests to a dance party. She assigned each guest a number from 2 to 18, keeping 1 for herself. The sum of each couple's numbers was a perfect square. What was the number of Sally's partner? |
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| 10-13 | PUZZLER: Emergency Surgery in Horse Town! (This ain't no haircut!) There are three people who need operations, a one-handed doctor, and only two surgical gloves. How can the doctor operate without risking contamination to her patients? |
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| 10-06 | PUZZLER: A Leisurely Vacation A guy goes on vacation to a resort and has a voucher for either golf in the morning or a massage in the afternoon. 5 mornings he slept in, 7 afternoons he went swimming. Some days he did nothing. He used 8 vouchers. How many days was he there? |
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| 09-29 | PUZZLER: A Used Car Crime A car was stolen off a used-car lot in the early 1970s, twice. The police arrested the car dealer even though he wasn't involved in either of the thefts. Why was he arrested? |
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| 09-22 | PUZZLER: A Magnetizing Dinner Chez Magliozzi Over dinner, Ray's wife notices that her knife and fork are stuck to each other, her knife was magnetized. Ray's son's knife was magnetized too, but the polarity was the reverse of hers. Ray's niece offers an explanation. What was her theory? |
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| 09-15 | PUZZLER: A Pig in a Poke Zeke and Zack each have a car but one has a touchy fuel pump and a probability of starting of 80%. The other has a faulty starter and a probability of starting of 70%. To get jobs at the pig farm, they need to be at work 90% of the time. How do they convince the farmer to hire them? |
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| 09-08 | PUZZLER: : Crusty's Wedding Crusty has lost a screw inside a distributor. He's able to remove it using a combination of the following: a screwdriver, a hammer, a jackknife, a salami sandwich, a jack, a junky old lamp, a gallon of Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil, and a 50-pound bag of dog food. How does he do it? |
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| 09-01 | PUZZLER: : A Controversial Car Gadget In the early 1930's a young inventor came up with an idea for a little gadget which could be installed in an automobile. Even though people were afraid it would be distracting to drivers, the gadget sold out within minutes of production. What was the gadget? |
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| 08-25 | PUZZLER: Who's Shootin' Who? There's a three-way duel between Mr. White, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Black. Mr. White is the worst shot of the three. Mr. Brown is twice as good and Mr. Black is deadly. If Mr. White gets the first shot, at whom should he aim his first shot to maximize his chances of surviving? |
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| 08-18 | PUZZLER: VW Beetle Tire Blowout Jerry's new 1968 Volkswagen Beetle has a tire blowout. He finds the spare under the hood where the engine should have been, replaces the bad tire, and puts the blown tire where the spare had been. Upon pulling into an unknown garage, how did the mechanic know Jerry needed a tire fixed? |
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| 08-11 | PUZZLER: The Confederate Soldiers Who Left Home When the Civil War ended, soldiers returned home to find the lives they knew were gone. Many left again in the hopes of rebuilding their lives, and they were carrying something. What was the name for these men? |
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| 08-04 | PUZZLER: Jailbreak It's a criminal puzzler. Can you figure out what foils this escape plan? |
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| 07-28 | PUZZLER: What Comes Next? There is a series of nine numbers: 335 443 554 __ followed by a blank. What's the blank, and why? |
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| 07-21 | PUZZLER: Going Fishing! Three guys go out fishing. They decide in advance that whatever they catch, they're going to divvy it up equally when they get back to port. Question is, how many fish do they catch? |
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| 07-14 | PUZZLER: Bobo's "Don't Look Back" Tour Bobo was told that he had to visit all 48 contiguous states. He could visit each state in whatever order he chose, but he could visit it only once. The company wanted him to start in Delaware, at their headquarters. Where did he finish? |
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| 07-07 | PUZZLER: Chia Cars! A leading automobile big wig once proposed a biodegradable car: its body would be made of soybean plastic, it would be powered by ethanol, and would run on tires made from goldenrod. Who was this innovative auto exec? |
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| 06-30 | PUZZLER: Order Up! Ray recently went out for an omelet breakfast. Each omelet was made with three eggs. The first three were cheese omelets: 7-dollars-45-cents. Bacon omelet was 7-dollars-70-cents. Bacon and cheese omelet: 8-dollars-45-cents. What does a plain omelet cost? |
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| 06-23 | PUZZLER: A California Coastal Cruise One weekend, a couple drives roundtrip from LA to Monterey, making different stops on both legs. Whats the probability that there was a place along the route that they reached at the same time of day on the trip to Monterey and the return trip to L.A.? |
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| 06-16 | PUZZLER: Green Means Go! A cement truck and a loaded dump truck are stopped at a red light. Which truck will accelerate faster when the light turns green? |
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| 06-09 | PUZZLER: Tommy's Eggy Escapade! Tommy breaks eggs at a farm stand and wants to pay for them. The farmer only says she could place two eggs in each bag with one left over. Same for three, four, five, and six eggs. With seven, she's got none left. How few eggs should Tom pay for? |
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| 06-02 | PUZZLER: A Stomach-Growling Evening A man and his wife go to their favorite restaurant to get dinner. On the way home from the restaurant, they are hungrier than before going to the restaurant. But they are happy with their decision to get dinner there. How could that be? |
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| 05-25 | PUZZLER: One, Two, Four but No More! Most of the cars currently produced for sale in the U.S. have one of these. Some cars have two. Nearly none have three. Some have four. And none have more. What is it? |
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| 05-19 | PUZZLER: An Eccentric Billionaire's Riddle of Fours An eccentric billionaire wants to landscape his new estate so that every tree, bush and shrub is planted in groups of four. In addition, each of these four plantings must be the same distance from the other, once theyre planted. Can it be done? |
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| 05-12 | PUZZLER: Car Talk Social Club The Car Talk Social Club has 500 members. For an upcoming event, tickets were 14-dollars for new members, and 20-dollars for old members. All the new members attended but only 70-percent of the old members went. How much did the Club make on ticket sales? |
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| 05-05 | PUZZLER: The Endless Mile John buys a new car 21 miles away and has a plan to pick it up: He drives his old car 21 miles north, parks it, gets the new car and drives that one mile south. He then locks it up, walks back north one mile to the dealer, picks up his old car and drives |
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| 04-28 | PUZZLER: Jumping Batteries Batman! A truck is stuck in a narrow alley with a dead battery. Another truck arrives but cannot reach the battery of the first truck with jumper cables. How do the drivers restart the first engine within just a few minutes? |
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| 04-21 | PUZZLER: Going Down Fast! Going down a long, steep grade, a vehicle was gaining speed at an alarming rate even though the driver was in low gear — he had to use the brakes nearly the entire way down. Why did he have to use the brakes? And why didn't first gear slow down the vehicle? |
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| 04-07 | PUZZLER: Burning Time You have two lengths of fuse and each takes exactly 1 hour to burn. But the fuses don't burn evenly and they're both likely to be different. Using only these two fuses and a cigarette lighter, how do you measure 45 minutes? |
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| 03-31 | PUZZLER: Flipping Ages A woman and her mother can reverse the digits in their ages. For example, if she is 37 her mother is 73. They have been able to do that six times in the past and could do it twice more in the future. How old is the woman now? |
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| 03-24 | PUZZLER: An Age-Old Question about a Ship and Its Boiler A ship and its boiler have a combined age of 42 years. The ship is twice as old as the boiler was when the ship was as old as the boiler is now. How old are they? |
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| 03-17 | PUZZLER: I'm Asking You Now! A woman calls her husband to remind him to do the grocery shopping. She asks him a normal question, which if she had asked it twenty or thirty years ago, he would have thought she was crazy. What was the question? |
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| 03-08 | PUZZLER: A Perfect Square A student is asked if the following number is a perfect square: 334,912,740,121,562. Crusty knows the answer immediately. What does Crusty know? |
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| 03-03 | PUZZLER: Lost Wages in Vegas A man goes to Vegas to gamble at a casino that requires a one-dollar entry and exit fee. The man plays the slots for three days, each day losing half his money, finally ending up broke. How much money did he start with? |
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| 02-25 | PUZZLER: A Field Goal Fiesta! A sports team is losing to its opponent by 6 to nothing, the opponent scored two field goals to account for its 6 points. The losing team then scores 3 field goals while holding the other team scoreless to lead by 7 to 6. How could that be correct? |
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| 02-11 | PUZZLER: You Want What? A man calls an auto parts store looking for a 28 ounce water pump. The store clerk has no idea what the part is-- but suddenly figures it out. The question is, what is the car part and what did the clerk figure out? |
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| 02-04 | PUZZLER: Dividing the Smart Kids Half of Ray's freshman class was smart enough to enroll in Calculus 2. Each section of advanced Calculus had the same number of students. How many sections were there? |
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| 01-28 | PUZZLER: Crusty and the Cruise Control Conundrum The cruise control on an old camper van is malfunctioning. Crusty solves the problem after looking at the rear lights. What was wrong? |
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| 01-21 | PUZZLER: The Palindromic Odometer Driving along, Terry notices that the last four digits on the odometer are palindromic. A mile later, the last five digits are palindromic. Two miles later, all six are palindromic. What was the odometer reading when Terry first looked at it? |
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| 01-14 | PUZZLER: Computing the Commute Jane's commute takes her one hour; however, some days it takes her longer. Why? |
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