Intriguing Puzzles Book 1 as well as Book 2 by Kjetill Oftedal – with 50 puzzles in each with solutions – are available on Amazon as well as here.
Please note that the puzzles on this blog can be viewed in many languages by using the Google Translator box below to the right on this page.
Two fathers, Rocky and Max, went with their daughters Lola and Lina to a large bookstore to buy some books for their libraries.
Each family bought a total of $65 in books. For each person, the number of books bought was the same as the price of each book.
Rocky bought one more book than Lina. Lola only bought one book.
How many books did Max buy and who is Lola’s father?
“Looks pretty suspicious to me, Molly,” growled private detective Sam Diamond, peering out of the window at the parking lot below through two slats he held apart in the blinds.
“What do you mean, suspicious?” asked Molly with a worried tone. She stood up to join Sam at the window, bending over to look.
“Don’t you see those cars over there in the shadow area of the street light?” said Sam, adjusting the pistol in the holster hanging inside his jacket.
“I see some black cars,” said Molly, “but what’s so suspicious about them?” Among Molly’s ample gifts there wasn’t a great deal of imagination.
“The way they’re parked, of course,” snarled Sam, peering more closely with his nose touching the window pane.
“I just see nine black cars parked side by side in a zone with white stripe marks for fourteen cars in the street,” said Molly, “and what’s so suspicious about that?”
“So why are they all parked together with the other five spaces empty, eh?” said Sam, “I tell you, Molly, something funny’s going on.”
Sam pulled out his gun and left the office to go investigate, and Molly sat down, blonde curls dangling over her bewildered face.
Do you think Sam had any reason to be suspicious on seeing the arrangement of nine cars parked side by side in a small parking zone intended for fourteen cars, considering the accidental probability of such a configuration?
“Nice to see you, Benny,” said Sam, tipping his hat on meeting his fellow mathematician while ambling down the main avenue of Summerville in the morning sun.
“Likewise, Sam, how’s life?” said Benny, tipping his hat in response as he ambled by.
“Just fine, all normal – well, my great uncle Bartholomew passed away,” said Sam.
“Really, how old was he?” asked Benny.
“Interesting you should ask, Benny. As a matter of fact, my great uncle Bartholomew was as old as the seed number of a quadruple magic square whose center kernel adds up to 470,” said Sam.
“Really!! That old,” said Benny.
“He was a tough old codger, born in the year of the sum of the square. Well, it was nice seeing you again,” said Sam, tipping his hat and walking on.
“He certainly was, spanning over two centuries. Look forward to seeing you another day, Sam,” said Benny and continued ambling down the main avenue of Summerville, after tipping his hat in parting.
How old would you say Sam’s great uncle Bartholomew was, and in what year was he born?
The famous explorer Arbuthnot Smythe and his assistant Pascal stood before the stone door of an inaccessible ancient Roman underground tomb over which their torches showed was engraved in large letters:
ET REQVIESCENT IBI TRES THESAURIS
Beside the door they saw three niches, each containing the bust of a lovely female, aged from young to mature.
“Such exquisite sculpture work,” said Pascal full of admiration. “I wonder who the women were.”
“They appear to be related,” commented Arbuthnot, on an impulse pushing on the ankh brooch sculpted on the older woman’s bust with his thumb and pulling her head forwards. This caused the stone door to open slowly on creaky hinges.
“Clever intuitive move,” exclaimed Pascal as they both entered and to their surprise saw that the interior of the tomb was illuminated by seven flaming lamps fixed around the walls.
They saw three exquisitely ornamented rectangular pools in each of which floated a perfectly preserved female body in serene repose, immersed in a transparent liquid. The older woman’s pool was placed on the left.
Arbuthnot Smythe and his assistant Pascal were speechless, eyes popping out and mouth dropping in wonder at this impossible spectacle.
After standing there for a while in a daze, Arbuthnot recovered himself sufficiently to speak.
“I have read about this type of tomb in Blavatsky’s Isis book. It was for Cicero’s daughter,” he said in wonder.
“Blavatsky even gives the formula for making these eternal flames.
The tomb was found in the 19th century, news of which was inevitably suppressed by religious authorities,” he related.
“What shall we do,” asked an astounded Pascal.
“Nothing,“ replied Arbuthnot sadly. “What we see here has been accomplished with knowledge of advanced spiritual technology. Science and western religions are not ready for this, least of all so-called modern medicine.”
“We will make a record of what we find for some future generation, when religion has evolved to become scientific and science to become religious,” he said quietly.
They switched their attention to the foot of each stone tomb, where they saw a marble coffer with the inscriptions:
LOCULA QUADRATA SUNT DIFFERENTIAE AEQUALES MMDCCCLXXX
ANNUS LXII
Arbuthnot forced open the first marble coffer with his sturdy knife. As the lid fell back, they saw that the coffer was full of gold coins.
Arbuthnot picked up a gold coin and studied it with a magnifying glass.
“This is an aureus coin of the type minted by Julius Caesar,” he shouted jubilantly. “It contains about eight grams of gold. What a treasure we have found, Pascal.”
“Really unbelievable. I wonder what’s in the other marble coffers,” said Pascal, unsheathing his knife to pry open the next marble coffer lid.
Again they found it was full of aureus coins, although this marble coffer was smaller. The third, even smaller marble coffer revealed the same: full of aureus coins.
“I wonder how many aureus coins there are in these marble coffers,” said Pascal scratching his head. “Based on their size, each one contains a smaller number of coins.”
“Judging from the engraved Roman text, I would say that the number of coins in any marble coffer is a square.” replied Arbuthnot, replacing his knife in its scabbard.
“Brilliant, then the difference between the number of coins in one marble coffer and the next descending one must be equal, judging from the second inscription,” added Pascal with a big smile.
“Yes indeed, that must be so,” exclaimed Arbuthnot. “Then we only have to do the math to determine how many coins there are in each of the marble coffers.”
“Well, being a purist, you do the math, Arbuthnot. To avoid a headache, I will use a computer,” laughed Pascal.
Arbuthnot had already pulled out a notebook and was writing down the details in equation form.
“Yes, I wonder who the women were,” said Arbuthnot Smythe. “My guess is they were the wife and daughters of a nobleman who met with a sudden unfortunate fate. So he left this treasure with them for the afterlife.”
Can you help Arbuthnot Smythe and Pascal work out how many gold coins each marble coffer contained, and the ages of the occupants?
As Jill swung through the door of the Blue Swan café one busy Saturday afternoon, she saw Jack sitting at a window table staring intently at his mobile phone, nervously sipping a coffee.
“What’s so fascinating on your phone, Jack? ”
“Jill, I could win a ten thousand dollar prize if I work out a code.”
“What code are you talking about.”
“A puzzle website is offering a promotional prize, but I have one hour to work out a code to win it.”
“Is it that difficult?” said Jill.
“Yeah, the code is based on a five-digit number that when quadrupled gives the reverse of itself, which is the number I need,” said Jack.
“Oh, that’s a tricky one. Any more information?”
“Well, there is a strange hint I can’t figure out,” said Jack with a forlorn expression.
“And what’s that?”
“The cryptic hint is: ‘The cross sum is the middle. Half the first is the second. Cube the start to get the end.’”
“I’ve run into this type of thing in my course on number theory with professor MacDooley. Does a fifty-fifty share sound ok to you, Jack?”
“Sure, Jill. What else can I say,” shrugged Jack.
Jill quickly pulled out a notepad, calculator and pen from her bag, sat down and got busy writing. Jack ordered her a cappuccino.
What would you say is the code needed to win the prize?
Two grandfathers sat discussing their families on a bench under an olive tree.
“How old is your granddaughter Rachel, Moishe?” asked Benny.
“Well, I’m twelve times older than Rachel.”
“How about some more info, Moishe.”
“Well, her mother, Sarah, is six times older. And her mother’s age divided by two gives a remainder of one.”
“Any other details you can offer?”
“Sarah’s age divided by three, four and eight also give a remainder of one, but five none,” added Moishe.
“Thanks, Moishe, that’ll do the trick.”
“And how old is your granddaughter, Miriam, Benny?”
“Twice Rachel’s age plus eight months.”
The two grandfathers continued discussing their families on the bench under the olive tree.
Can you work out the ages of Moishe, Sarah, Rachel and Miriam.
One sunny Saturday afternoon, Melvyn, Sam and Bart were sitting around a parasol table enjoying some drinks by the swimming pool at the Sasquatch Hills country club, discussing the merits of their own swimming pool pumps.
“I know we all have the same pool size, as it was installed by my cousin Harvey’s company, ACME Pool Heaven, Inc. Let me tell you, guys, my pump can fill the pool in just thirty minutes,” said Melvyn enthusiastically.
“You must have gotten the cheap pump version, Melvyn, mine can do it in twenty minutes,” said Sam, gurgling down a large swig of beer.
“Since mine does it in in ten minutes, you both obviously don’t have the Tiger Turbo Pump,” said Bart, stroking his Van Dyke while eyeing nubile pool fauna.
“Hey guys, how long do you figure it would take to fill your pool if all three pumps were used,” said Molly, the summer-job waitress, who had overheard the conversation while serving their Mega Burger Specials.
Melvyn, Sam and Bart were left nonplussed as Molly walked off, considering whether they would give her a tip or not.
How long would you say it would take to fill the pool with all three pumps filling at the same time?
Speedy Surveys Inc. one afternoon sent five surveyors to carry out a statistical study on matching birth data from a base point In the walking street of Mapletown.
The surveyor would ask a random person to give their first name, day and month of birth, then check for a match on their list. As soon as a match was found the surveyor would return to the base point with the list.
After return of the five surveyors with their lists, the data was collected and the process repeated again for a total of ten times.
The data were then compiled into a complete report for Speedy Surveys Inc.
As a special bonus, surveyors who interviewed someone who had the same birth data as themselves were awarded a free pizza meal at the famous Guiseppe’s Pizza House.
What would you say was the average number of persons that had to be interviewed by a surveyor to get a birth data match?
What would you say was the probability that at least two of the five surveyors were awarded a free pizza meal?
“Nice to see you, Benny,” said Sam, tipping his hat on meeting his fellow mathematician while ambling down the main avenue of Summerville.
“Likewise, Sam, how’s life?” said Benny, tipping his hat in response.
“Just fine, all normal – well, my great uncle Bartholomew passed away,” said Sam.
“Really, how old was he?” asked Benny.
“Interesting you should ask, Benny. As a matter of fact, my great uncle Bartholomew was as old as the seed number in a quadruple magic square whose center kernel adds up to 470,” said Sam.
“Really!! That old,” said Benny.
“He was a tough old codger, born in the year of the sum of the square. Well, it was nice seeing you again,” said Sam, tipping his hat and walking on.
“He certainly was, spanning over two centuries. Look forward to seeing you another time, Sam,” said Benny and continued ambling down the main avenue of Summerville, after tipping his hat in parting.
How old would you say Sam’s great uncle Bartholomew was, and in what year would you say he was born?