Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 1922

One sunny day Alice met the White Rabbit. The Rabbit told her that he owns a pocket watch which has 11 gears arranged in a chain loop. The rabbit asked Alice if it was possible for all the gears to rotate simultaneously. What is your opinion on this matter? Can all the gears rotate simultaneously?

After the Mad Tea-Party, the Hatter was so excited that he decided to cool down by going on a short walk across the chessboard. He started at position a1, then walked around in steps taking each step as if he was a knight, and eventually returned back to a1. Show that he made an even number of steps.

Is it possible that odd integers \(a\), \(b\), \(c\), \(d\) satisfy \(\frac{1}{a}+\frac{1}{b}+\frac{1}{c}+\frac{1}{d}=1\)?

The Cheshire Cat wrote one of the numbers \(1, 2,\dots, 15\) into each box of a \(15\times15\) square table in such a way, that boxes which are symmetric to the main diagonal contain equal numbers. Every row and column consists of 15 different numbers. Show that no two numbers along the main diagonal are the same.

A bus, a truck, and a motorcycle move without acceleration and pass a stationary observer at equal time intervals in the order mentioned above. They pass another observer farther down the road at the same equal time intervals but in different order. This time the order is the bus, the motorcycle, the truck. Find the speed of the bus, if the speed of the truck is 30 mph, and the speed of the motorcycle is 60 mph.

Is it possible to divide the numbers 1, 2, 3, ..., 100 into pairs of one odd and one even number, such that in every pair except one the even number is greater than the odd number

Two pirates Bob and John were boasting that they could make the strongest coctail. Bob mixed together rum and gin, and John mixed vodka and port. It is known that rum is stronger than vodka, and gin is stronger than port. Can it be that John’s drink was stronger than Bob’s?

Is it possible that the sum and the product of some given natural numbers is equal to 99?