Problems
Restore the example of the multiplication.
Prove that the number of all arrangements of the largest possible amount of peaceful bishops (figures that move on diagonals and don’t threaten each other) on the \(8\times 8\) chessboard is an exact square.
Petya and Misha play such a game. Petya takes in each hand a coin: one – 10 pence, and the other – 15. After that, the contents of the left hand are multiplied by 4, 10, 12 or 26, and the contents of the right hand – by 7, 13, 21 or 35. Then Petya adds the two results and tells Misha the result. Can Misha, knowing this result, determine which hand – the right or left – contains the 10 pence coin?
Giuseppe has a sheet of plywood, measuring \(22 \times 15\). Giuseppe wants to cut out as many rectangular blocks of size \(3 \times 5\) as possible. How should he do it?
a) An apple is heavier than a banana, and a banana is heavier than a kiwi. What’s heavier – a kiwi or an apple?
b) A mandarin is lighter than a pear, and an orange is heavier than a mandarin. What is heavier – a pear or an orange?
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?
Fred and George had two square cakes. Each twin made two straight cuts on his cake from edge to edge. However, one ended up with three pieces, and the other with four. How could this be?
If yesterday was Thursday, what day will be yesterday for the day after tomorrow?
There are some weighing scales without weights and 3 identical in appearance coins, one of which is fake: it is lighter than a real coin (real coins are equal in weight). How many weighings are needed to determine a counterfeit coin?
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?