Problems
20 birds fly into a photographer’s studio – 8 starlings, 7 wagtails and 5 woodpeckers. Each time the photographer presses the shutter to take a photograph, one of the birds flies away and doesn’t come back. How many photographs can the photographer take to be sure that at the end there will be no fewer than 4 birds of one species and no less than 3 of another species remaining in the studio.
Elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes. In all zoos where there are elephants and rhinoceroses, there are no giraffes. In all zoos where there are rhinoceroses and there are no giraffes, there are elephants. Finally, in all zoos where there are elephants and giraffes, there are also rhinoceroses. Could there be a zoo in which there are elephants, but there are no giraffes and no rhinoceroses?
The population of China is one billion people. It would seem that on a map of China with a scale of 1 : 1,000,000 (1 cm : 10 km), it would be possible to fit a million times fewer people than there is in the whole country. However, in fact, not only 1000, but even 100 people will not be able to be placed on this map. Can you explain this contradiction?
Several natives of an island met up (each either a liar or a knight), and everyone said to everyone else: “You are all liars.” How many knights were there among them?
Among 4 people there are no three with the same name, the same middle name and the same surname, but any two people have either the same first name, middle name or surname. Can this be so?
In a 10-storey house, 1 person lives on the first floor, 2 on the second floor, 3 on the third, 4 on the fourth, ..., 10 on the tenth. On which floor does the elevator stop most often?
Carpenters were sawing some logs. They made 10 cuts and this produced 16 pieces of wood. How many logs did they saw?
Snow White cut out a big square of cotton fabric and placed it in a chest. The first gnome came, took out the square of fabric from the chest, cut it into four squares, put these back in the chest and left. Later the second gnome came and took out one of the squares and then cut it into four pieces and placed all of these in the chest. Then came the third gnome. He also took out one of the squares and cut it into four squares and put them all back in the chest. The rest of the gnomes also did the same thing. How many squares of fabric were in the chest after the seventh gnome left?
