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“A brilliant collection of puzzles. Never has getting the answer wrong felt so good!”―G. T. Karber, author of Murdle
Most people get these puzzles wrong. Will you beat the odds?
From mathy mind-benders to eye-fooling illusions, here are 70 perplexing puzzles of every kind. But they all have one key thing in common―a wrong answer that seems so right! In Puzzle Me Twice, you’ll have to think―and think again―to overrule your first instinct and uncover the truth. For example:
If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs do half a dozen hens lay in half a dozen days?*
Bestselling author Alex Bellos wrangles math and physics, logic and wordplay, optical illusions, card games, and more to tie readers’ brains in pleasurable knots. It’s a merry tour of the many ways our reasoning can go wrong―and how we can be more fool-proof in the future. Puzzle on!
*Four times as many hens, over four times as many days, lay 16 times as many eggs: 1.5 × 16 = 24 eggs. With 34 black-and-white and 9 color illustrations
From the Publisher
Confounding Cash
A woman steals $100 from a shop’s cash register. She then buys $70 of goods from that store, and gets $30 change. How much money did the shop lose?
ANSWER: The shop lost $100 because that is how much the woman stole from it. The error people make in answering this question is overthinking it. You can tie yourself in knots working out what to add and subtract. The easiest way to think about it is to imagine two different people walking into the shop on that day: One of them steals $100 from the cash register. The other comes into the shop with $100 in her wallet, spends $70, and gets $30 change.
The actions of the second person result in the shop losing nothing. Indeed, the shop has made a sale, and the exchange of money for stuff is precisely what shops do. When a shop sells you something, the shop is not “losing” anything. It is selling it! The only money the shop loses is the money stolen from it.
Sistery Mystery
Imagine a country where there are slightly more girls than boys. Let’s say the ratio is 51 to 49—so for every 100 randomly chosen people who are male or female, on average 51 are female and 49 are male. Who has more sisters, on average? a) Girls b) Boys
(In other words, on average, does each girl have more or fewer sisters than each boy?)
ANSWER: The answer is neither. In this imaginary country, there are marginally more girls than boys, and this excess of girls leads to the intuitive (wrong) answer that girls probably have more sisters than boys. There are more girls around, so more all-girl families—think of all those sisters! In fact, however, the girls and boys have, on average, exactly the same number of sisters. The chance of any person having a sister is more likely than the chance they have a brother, but in any family these chances are equal for both boys and girls. Learn more about this puzzle on page 30!
Money Month
Which of the following will make you richer? a) Over the next 30 days, I’ll give you $10,000 a day. b) Over the next 30 days, I’ll give you 1¢ on the first day, 2¢ on the second day, 4¢ on the third day, 8¢ on the fourth, and so on, doubling each time.
ANSWER: The most lucrative option by far is b) Over the next 30 days, I’ll give you 1¢ on the first day, 2¢ on the second day, 4¢ on the third day, 8¢ on the fourth, and so on, doubling each time. With option a), after 30 days you will have amassed $300,000.
If you go for option b), on the other hand, on day 30 you will receive $5.4 million, giving you a total for the month of more than $10 million. (On day n you will earn 2n—1 cents, and 229 = 536,870,912.) The daily values in b) may start out very small, but they grow exponentially, so the amount of money amassed quickly accumulates.
Confounding Cash
Sistery Mystery
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More from Alex Bellos
A World Tour of Languages and Alphabets in 100 Amazing Puzzles 70 Simple Puzzles (Almost) Everyone Gets Wrong Math, Logic & Word Puzzles to Challenge Your Brain Ingenious, Perplexing, and Totally Satisfying Math and Logic Puzzles A Coloring Adventure in Math and Beauty A Coloring Journey Through Math’s Great Mysteries
ASIN : B0CVPNC8QQ
Publisher : The Experiment (October 15, 2024)
Language : English
Paperback : 224 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8893030280
Item Weight : 6.2 ounces
Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.7 x 7.1 inches
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