bonanova

The warden never said it would be 50/50. If the prisoners knew it was 50/50, the best strategy would be everyone picking white. [or everyone picking black].

If you need some fraction f of a gallon of lead, pour [1-f] gallons of water into the jug. Add lead pellets until the jug is full. Or is that not what you wanted?

LIS has [2], [5] and [7] [edited]

Nope. But check the OP for a new 3rd word that might help.

A number of you said you like the first one. Here's another. I read somewhere that the word "set" has the greatest number of distinct meanings. So, let's see. Again, the number of dashes indicates the number of letters in the connecting words. [1] set _ _ _ romance [2] set _ _ _ celebs [3] set _ _ _ _ heal [4] set _ _ _ _ _ play [5] set _ _ _ _ _ tribe [6] set _ _ _ _ _ decimal [7] set _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ hard [8] set _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ potpourri

2, 3, 4 correct. They've all been found.

That's it.

Since this one is now solved, here's a related puzzle you may not have seen. Enjoy.

Correct.

Here's a puzzle that most of can't solve. Only the ones who know how to defend the 1/2 answer can solve it. Puzzle. A family has two children. Assume each child had a 50/50 chance at birth of being a boy. State the conditions under which it is equally likely that the children are (a) both boys and (b) mixed gender.

Thanks. Send me the therapist's bill.

I think it was your last statement that made me wonder what your answer was. If you're saying the answer is an hour and a half, you got it. One shortfall of this puzzle is that 1:30 can refer both to a clock time and to the time interval. I probably misinterpreted what you said. What I was looking for is the observation that the longest possible string of single chimes is 7, and they span an hour and 30 minutes. Or words to that effect. Some answers were posted as a stream of consciousness thought flow and I may have not followed all of them correctly. The catch is that some would reason you'd need to hear the two o'clock chime to be sure.

I'm thinking it's not possible - without at least one bridge. It's like connecting each of 5 dots directly to the other 4 without a crossing.

The red herrings are all neatly caught in the net. Good job.

Yah, that works, Unist, but it's a form of communicating, and the warden says that's a no-no. Keep thinking, and remember the expectation without communicating is only 50%. So try to come up with a way that no fewer than 50% are guaranteed freedom.

Itachi-san has 2 and 4. grey cells has 3. niner has 1. Good job. Now, what's 5?

That's what you get when you type before you think. That would be me that I'm referring to ...

The story goes that a man bequeathed a square plot of land to his five sons. His first son was his favorite, so he got 1/4 of the land - a square part in the North-West corner. That left an L-shaped piece to the East and South. Wanting the other four sons to have equivalent parcels, equal not only in area but also in shape, he's asking you to come up with a way to carve that L-shaped piece into 4 congruent parcels. See if you can come up with the solution. OK, so that's not the puzzle I have for you. Let's suppose there were no favored son, and the father wanted all five of his sons to have parcels of exactly the same area and exactly the same shape. Can you solve that one? Leave the spoiler open if that will help.

A lot of good, creative thinking. But only #2 has been found so far. To some extent, more than one word relates to both the others, but I tried to choose ones that fit well. I'll check back in the morning [new york time]. Gee, I thought [3] would be the first one to be found.

Correct for #2.

There's a simple but sometimes challenging word game that a group can play. Player #1 gives a word - let's say it's read. Player #2 then thinks of a related word, say page, but he keeps it to himself. Player #2 then thinks of a third word, that's related to the 2nd, but not necessarily to the 1st. In fact, it's best if it's not related to the 1st. In this case it could be say boy, and he says it aloud. The object is for the other players to guess the 2nd word. Here are some examples, then I'll give you some to guess: clock - tick - bug. horse - tail - Snow White and the seven dwarfs. [tail sounds like tale] beard - hair - rabbit [again hair sounds like hare] You can see how sound-alikes can add complexity, to the task. Since this is a think-ing person's game, I'm choosing to use think five times with five different third words. You need to guess the five [different] words in between. Have fun. [1] think _ _ _ _ _ _ excuse [2] think _ _ _ _ _ _ marvel [3] think _ _ _ _ grope [4] think _ _ _ _ _ _ _ doubt [5] think _ _ _ _ _ _ _ accept There's a built-in hint - the number of dashes is the number of letters. If you like this puzzle type, feel free to make up your own, around a different theme.

largeneal has it. My extreme bad for not reading back to previous page. post #7. :blush: I have to say that the reasoning escaped subsequent posts. largemeal correctly reasoned that at the 7th single chime you know the time is 1:45. [edit - the interval is thus an hour and a half] You don't have to wait until the double chime at 2:00. Thanks for bearing with my oversight, and congrats to largeneal!

Wow. It's not that hard. Really. OK let's get the clutter out of the way. [1] forget DST - say it's the middle of June. [2] If you hear, say, the last chime of 12:00, you heard all 12 chimes. Hmmm... I guess that's it. Here's a hint. One of EventHorizon's time intervals is correct, but the reason given [start and end points] is not. OK so now the answer should include the interval and the end points. Final hint. No seconds are involved. For the purpose of calculating intervals, you may assume every chime [however many individual sounds it has] happens instantaneously on precisely :00, :15, :30, or :45. There it is, on a platter. Take it.