The evil stepmother, leaving for the ball, gave Cinderella a bag in which rice and cous-cous were mixed, and ordered for them to be sorted. When Cinderella was leaving for the ball, she left three bags: one was rice, the other – cous-cous, and in the third – an unsorted mixture. In order not to confuse the bags, Cinderella attached to each of them a sign saying: “Rice”, “Cous-cous” and “Mixture”.
The stepmother returned from the ball first and deliberately swapped all the signs in such a way that on every sack there was an incorrect sign. The Fairy Godmother managed to warn Cinderella that now none of the signs on the bags are true. Then Cinderella took out only one single grain from one sack and, looking at it, immediately worked out what was in each bag. How did she do it?
There is a 12 litre barrel filled with water, and two empty barrels (one is 5 litres in volume and the other is 8 litres). Using these barrels, try to
a) divide the water into 2 parts with volumes: 3 litres and 9 litres;
b) divide the water into 2 parts with equal volume.
If yesterday was Thursday, what day will be yesterday for the day after tomorrow?
On a table, there are five coins lying in a row: the middle one lies with a head facing upwards, and the rest lie with the tails side up. It is allowed to simultaneously flip three adjacent coins. Is it possible to make all five coins positioned with the heads side facing upwards with the help of several such overturns?
Catherine asked Jennifer to multiply a certain number by 4 and then add 15 to the result. However, Jennifer multiplied the number by 15 and then added 4 to the result, but the answer was still correct. What was the original number?
In Wonderland, an investigation was conducted into the case of a stolen soup. At the trial, the White Rabbit said that the soup was stolen by the Mad Hatter. The Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter also testified, but what they said, no one remembered, and the record was washed away by Alice’s tears. During the court session, it became clear that only one of the defendants had stolen the soup and that only he had given a truthful testimony. So, who stole the soup?
In a bookcase, there are four volumes of the collected works of Astrid Lindgren, with each volume containing 200 pages. A worm who lives on this bookshelf has gnawed its way from the first page of the first volume to the last page of the fourth volume. Through how many pages has the worm gnawed its way through?
There are some incorrect weighing scales, a bag of cereal and a correct weight of 1 kg. How can you weigh on these scales 1 kg of cereals?
Can there exist two functions \(f\) and \(g\) that take only integer values such that for any integer \(x\) the following relations hold:
a) \(f (f (x)) = x\), \(g (g (x)) = x\), \(f (g (x)) > x\), \(g (f (x)) > x\)?
b) \(f (f (x)) < x\), \(g (g (x)) < x\), \(f (g (x)) > x\), \(g (f (x)) > x\)?
Michael thinks of a number no less than \(1\) and no greater than \(1000\). Victoria is only allowed to ask questions to which Michael can answer “yes” or “no” (Michael always tells the truth). Can Victoria figure out which number Michael thought of by asking \(10\) questions?