What are some examples of challenging logical puzzles and questions?

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The discussion revolves around a series of brain teasers and logic puzzles shared by a forum member, inviting others to participate in solving them. The puzzles often involve scenarios with multiple potential answers, but the focus is on finding the most logical or unique solution. One notable puzzle involves a man hiking who finds two dead men in a cabin, prompting various guesses about their cause of death. Another puzzle features two men ordering identical drinks, where one survives and the other dies, leading to creative answers involving alcohol poisoning and other theories. Participants engage actively, offering various solutions and debating their validity, with some answers being deemed more satisfactory than others based on logical reasoning. The thread also includes a competitive element, with members earning points for their contributions and a leaderboard reflecting their standings. As the puzzles progress, the complexity increases, leading to discussions about assumptions and the nature of logic in problem-solving. The conversation highlights the importance of critical thinking and creativity in approaching seemingly straightforward questions.
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Hi all,:smile:

I have been around in physics forums for quite some time and have always worked around the homework help section or the science advisory forum.It is after so many days that i find a place to relax and share some knowledgeable things with my excellent colleagues on the forum.

Starting today, as i near my 300th post ( and a long way to go! :approve:), i start a thread where anybody and everybody is invited.A place where I post some very tricky brain challenging puzzles and questions which require excellent thinking skills, logical power and reasoning ability, which i am sure all the members of this brilliant forum possess.

Questions relate to daily life and are very simple but sensible.A question can be answered by anybody and as is the case that these questions can have many possible answers but the most 'logical' one will be accepted.

I start a journey today and hope you all come along.

Cheers!
 
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Here is the first one and a pretty simple one:

A man is hiking up a snowy mountain, he comes across a cabin.
Inside the cabin is a small fire and two dead men.
How did they die? (They did not burn to death.)

Start the Show.
 
Poison.
 
carbon monoxide
 
Thanks for the start. Nice try.
It is not the answer.
 
The above reply is meant for Bryanp.

Andre hits the bull's eye.If a more logical answer does not come, then Andre goes with the accolades.
 
This is for you Andre ( the level goes a bit up!):

Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.
Logic?
 
No answers?

Question Open For All.
 
One of them is immune for the germs in it.
 
  • #10
Not This Time Bro.It is much more Deeper.
In fact it requires Physics and chemistry both!.

Come on Guys.
 
  • #11
Ok silly try.
Both order alcohol.
One gets ethanol, the other gets methanol (poisonous)
heheheh
 
  • #12
physixguru said:
Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.
The evening was sultry and I was thirsty. I was sitting in a bar nursing my shot and beer that I had received earlier that day when two men, let's call them Gaston and Alphonse, enter.

Gaston grew up in Chicago's notorious South Side, the product of a broken house. The family was OK, it was the house that was broken. He has a scar on his cheek from when he scratched himself falling down 300 flights of steps as a toddler. He looks at the bartender, sizes him up, and orders a Pink Lady.

The bartender nods approval, but in fact doesn't know how to mix a Pink Lady. They only pour shots and beers here. While smiling on the outside, inwardly there is a great struggle going on. He had grown up in Fargo, North Dakota, on the rough side of town. He limped from an injury he received in one foot while trying to shoot himself in the other. He was taunted mercilessly about it his whole life. Now with the mixed drink order, he feels that his entire reason for being has been challenged and not for the first time either. He pours a shot and a beer, slides it over and says "Use your imagination chum."

Alphonse is a Walkman (TM) salesman from South Jersey. Handsome, dapper, but with a speech impediment. Good at what he does, he has been selling Walkmen like they were going out of style. To celebrate his success, he had come into the bar looking for his girlfriend, Peaches Capone.

The bartender, already in a bad mood, snarls at Alphonse. "What do you want?", he growls. Alphonse, taken aback, stammers "I'm l-l-looking for a p-p-pink l-l-lady."

The bartender snaps. He pulls a rifle out from under the bar and takes careful aim at the middle of Alphonse's unibrow and pulls the trigger. The bartender is a lousy shot, and even from a distance of 2 inches he missed, plugging me in the big toe and killing me instantly.
 
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  • #13
physixguru said:
Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.
Logic?

Excellent solution Jimmy

What ever it is, there are several solutions, for instance, one doesn't drink, the other drinks both. One had a random stroke, etc, etc. Chemical and physical? A quickly decomposing poison? One drinks fast, the other slow?

The test would be nicer if there was only one feasible solution. The others obviously bouncing on a given detail.
 
  • #14
physixguru said:
This is for you Andre ( the level goes a bit up!):

Two men enter a bar. They both order identical drinks. One lives; the other dies.
Logic?

One had already been drinking prior to entering the bar, and the Long Island Iced Tea they both ordered was enough to give the already inebriated one alcohol poisoning, while the other one was perfectly fine since it was only his first drink of the night.
 
  • #15
elaborate solution moonbear :)
 
  • #16
They ordered a drink on the rocks. One downed it in less than a minute, and the other slowly sipped his drink while the ice melted. Contained in the ice was arsenic from a rat trap that fell into the ice maker.

So the one who sipped slowly died due to the arsenic contaminating his drink, and the other's ice didn't have a chance to melt so he lived.
 
  • #17
Are we still talking about logical skills, or is it already a SF contest?
 
  • #18
Thanks buddies , for all your attempts and answers.Nice to see your growing interest.

Moonbear's answer was also reasonable but it was dependent on the fact that one man was drinking from before.

Jimmy's answer was also excellent but more than logic , it was a theoretical explanation of his own mind.

Dyslexichobo came close , in fact much close to it , and out of all the above answers, was the most satisfactory.

Thank you all, DyslexicHobo takes the accolades.

Cheers.:approve:
 
  • #19
Take this, a perfectly daily life question.

A woman throws something out a window and dies.
What causes her death? (Not more than 2 answers are possible).

Also I decided to make a points table for the contest:

CURRENT STANDINGS:

1.Andre - 10 points
2.DyslexicHobo- 10 points
3.Moonbear-5 points
4.Jimmy-5 points
 
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  • #20
1. She tossed a bag of complimentary peanuts out a window and died of massive trauma.
2. She tossed her husband out a window and died of a broken neck.

I believe these are the two possibilites you had in mind.
 
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  • #21
When I was a kid my Grandma throw me an apple through the window, somehow I remember it up to now. She have died 30 years later.
 
  • #22
She threw herself out of the window in a suicide attempt.
 
  • #23
She has lost Kidney function and threw her Dialysis machine out the window.RE: Jimmysnyder's 2nd answer: if she threw her husband out, how did she get a broken neck? When I read it I thought you were going to say she threw him out and died of a broken heart.
 
  • #24
Answer 2: She was on a plane and depressurised the cabin causing it to crash.
 
  • #25
neu said:
RE: Jimmysnyder's 2nd answer: if she threw her husband out, how did she get a broken neck?
Apparently some people took a dim view of what she had done and gave it to her.
 
  • #26
physixguru said:
Take this, a perfectly daily life question.
A woman throws something out a window and dies.
What causes her death? (Not more than 2 answers are possible).
In his haste to leave before her husband came home, her lover had forgotten to take his underwear with him. The woman realized his mistake just minutes after he left and threw it to him out the window. Just as she tosses the personal item to him, her husband, who had suspected the two were having an affair for some time now, comes around the corner carrying his rifle. He shoots her.
What leaves me slightly unsatisfied about this solution is that I have to assume that the woman lives in Texas.
 
  • #27
DeaconJohn's answer again cannot be given full credit as it depends on the love story of the woman.It is not a situation independent question.But still good try buddy.

Kurdt's second answer was more than just satisfactory but it was assumed that she attempted suicide.Again it was dependent on the woman's psychology.

neu's answer was out of sorts.A woman is not foolish enough to throw her life saving machine and if she had a kidney failure, where the hell did she get the power to pluck the dialysis machine and throw it out?

Same is the case with jimmy's answer.

I already mentioned that , it was a daily life question and answers are also very general.
It must happen unknowingly to the woman.

Correct Answer:
The object she throws is a boomerang. It flies out, loops around, and unexpextedly,,comes back and hits her in the head, killing her. Boomerangs do not often return so close to the point from which they were thrown, but I believe it's possible for this to happen.
 
  • #28
No more answers are invited for the previous question as the question is closed now.
I again stress that, the questions posted have answers very general and natural,extremely simple assumptions should be made.Also, the questions posted till now have more than 1 answer becoz they are the easiest of the lot.As the level will go up,only one unique answer will be possible.

Current standings:

1.Andre-10 points
2.DyslexicHobo-10 points
3.Kurdt-5 points
4.Jimmy-5 points
5.Moonbear-5 points
 
  • #29
Considered one of the best of today's times:

A man tries to buy poison to kill his wife. The pharmacist figures out what he's up to and finds a way to ensure that he can't kill his wife.How does the pharmacist do it?

Only one answer possible.
 
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  • #30
The pharmacist calls the cops.
Jordan Joab.
 
  • #31
physixguru said:
Considered one of the best of today's times:

A man tries to buy poison to kill his wife. The pharmacist figures out what he's up to and finds a way to ensure that he can't kill his wife.How does the pharmacist do it?

Only one answer possible.

Sugar is indistinguishable from arsnic unless you taste it.

BTW, it seems to me that your boomerang answer has the disadvantage that one must assume that the woman is an Australian aborigine. They are the only women with enough skill to throw a boomerang so that it will come back to exactly where you threw it from. The rest of us (men and women) run madly to the place the boomerang decided to "return" to. The things seem to have a mind of their own.
 
  • #32
For Jordanjoab , the pharmacist cannot just call the cops without evidence.He cannot just ring the police and say "hey I think this man plans to kill his wife"! He has no evidence.

For DeaconJohn , Again you assume that the pharmacist came to know about the man's plan before he gave the poison.Also you never know whether the man bought arsenic, rat poison, or cyanide.It is the strategy of the pharmacist after the poison has been given,that counts.

Again , for your contradiction of the boomerang solution, the answer mentions the word "unexpectedly".I am myself no expert in throwing boomerangs but once or twice it has come back pretty nicely for me.Again a very general assumption which can always happen in daily life.

Question open for all.
 
  • #33
physixguru said:
Considered one of the best of today's times:

A man tries to buy poison to kill his wife. The pharmacist figures out what he's up to and finds a way to ensure that he can't kill his wife.How does the pharmacist do it?

Only one answer possible.

The husband tried to buy the poison to kill his wife. The pharmacist figures out what he's up to. If the pharmacist was able to conclude a murder would take place he has more than enough reason to call the cops.



Jordan Joab.
 
  • #34
But law does not take a man's intuition into account.He must have a proof to show to the police, as how he figured out the murder.Also, when he goes out to call the cops, the man may escape and murder his wife and flee.Moreover,when the cops come in, the man may say that he bought the poison to kill rats or pests.The pharmacist may then be jailed for putting false allegations on a man.
Everything now depends on the pharmacist's abilities and his own skill to trap the man in his own game.This statement is itself a hint!

Think logically.
 
  • #35
physixguru said:
But law does not take a man's intuition into account.He must have a proof to show to the police, as how he figured out the murder.Also, when he goes out to call the cops, the man may escape and murder his wife and flee.Moreover,when the cops come in, the man may say that he bought the poison to kill rats or pests.The pharmacist may then be jailed for putting false allegations on a man.

Think logically.

Alright. Eventually, the husband will kill the wife. The pharmacist just delayed the outcome.
Jordan Joab.

Edit: I apologize if I come off as confrontational. I'm not trying to. I'll go back to my lair now.
 
  • #36
Nice try Jordan,
But the point is that the '' pharmacist prevents the murder, not delays it".

No need to apologize, the questions you raised were inevitable in anybody's mind.

Anybody there?
 
  • #37
It is getting more and more stupid. It has nothing to do with logic, and the only reason for some assumptions to hold and for others to not is "because I said so".
 
  • #38
Borek said:
It is getting more and more stupid. It has nothing to do with logic, and the only reason for some assumptions to hold and for others to not is "because I said so".

My dear friend Borek,
these questions are situational logic i.e. questions depending on the practicality of a person,
it is how well you react to a situation.
Moreover , if i had to post the so called "logical" questions according to you, then i don't need to do it coz millions of them are available on the internet.
And one more think it is not becoz i said so, it is becoz the "answer said so".
These questions have not been picked up from stray and posted on PF.These are world class questions asked at various competitive tests and interviews.I am no moron.

Hope you understand.This thread tests your thinking and logical reasoning.The points put up by me are perfectly true and just.
 
  • #39
Pharmacist: Buddy, here's your bottle of poison, sorry for the delay. I know you're trying to kill your wife. So I've just mailed a letter, a copy of the receipt and the bill with your prints on it to a secret locker and instructed a friend to open it if anything happens to me. If your wife dies anytime soon, I will talk to the cops and make sure they nail your @$$. If anything happens to me, my friend will pass on the contents of my locker to the police. Have a nice day.
 
  • #40
I don't buy it. Call it test of creative thinking, it'll be OK. But - like in the boomerang case - you need several assumptions for the boomerang answer to be correct. One, she has to have a boomerang (how many people with boomerangs at home do you know?), second she has to be able to throw it correctly and precisely (as it was already pointed by DeaconJohn it is not that easy), third she has to have quite a strong hand so that boomerang kills her on return (and remember, how many people survives blows, hits, crashes and so on). You need three unlikely assumptions for the boomerang answer to be correct.

Let me put it another way. Ask me "How likely it is that the random women died after throwing boomerang through the window". Hmm, I don't know a single person that owns boomerang, so it is doubtfull. But even if, to get killed you need to throw it very strong. Most of the women I know won't be strong enough, so it is doubtfull. And then you need not only a lot a strength, but also a lot of skill. Again, I don't know anyone with that skill, which makes things even more doubtfull. This is logic at work.

In a real life situation heart attack looks much more likely. Heck, it is much more likely that she was throwing her housband sandwitch he forgot to take, she slipped and hit window sill with her head.
 
  • #41
The pharmacist is his wife. She commits suicide.
 
  • #42
Jimmy i have got to say, you are damn intelligent.
Kudos to you for your wonderful presence of mind: 8 points.

Gokul does it in style.Love your response.Amazingly executed answer: 6 points.

As for Borek,I do not wish to argue with such a senior member.If you don't want to test your skills, don't criticize this thread for no reason.

STILL LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT ANSWER.
 
  • #43
pharmacist kills man?
 
  • #44
Hey, I am not a kid eater! And one third of my seniority comes for $15, you can afford it :wink:
 
  • #45
Gear300 said:
pharmacist kills man?

Brilliant try.The experts do not accept this solution as they do not want the pharmacist to become a criminal and save the wife.

But as i have told ,the members of PF are more than smart and these innovative answers , truly force me to believe that innovation has a new dimension.

Gear300 gets 5 points.

STILL LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT ANSWER.

CURRENT STANDINGS:

1.Jimmy-13 points
2.Andre-10 points
3.Moonbear-5 points
4.Gokul-6 points
5.Gear300-5 points
6.DyslexicHobo-10 points
7.Kurdt-5 points
 
  • #46
Borek said:
Hey, I am not a kid eater! And one third of my seniority comes for $15, you can afford it :wink:

Seniority does not come with a price tag and if it does,I spit on it.
 
  • #47
physixguru said:
A man tries to buy poison to kill his wife. The pharmacist figures out what he's up to and finds a way to ensure that he can't kill his wife.How does the pharmacist do it?
Only one answer possible.

jimmysnyder said:
The pharmacist is his wife. She commits suicide.

physixguru said:
8 points.

Why only 8? When you shout that you are looking for a perfect answer, I think you mean 'can we guess what your answer is.'
 
  • #48
RE: the boomerang answer to the last conudrum:

If she throws the boomerang OUT of the window then upon its return it will enter INTO the room. Of course someone can fall in any direction when hit by something it is somewhat unlikely that a woman who was expecting a boomerang to return through the window to get hit by it then fall in the direction from whence it came?

Better solution: she throws the boomerang but it doesn't quite reach her on its return so she stretches to try and catch it and falls to her death.

Anyway, for the current conudrum my first answer is the obvious one:

The pharmacist sabotages the husband's plot by replacing the drug asked for with a some substance that will not harm his wife but cause her to ill health sufficient to goto A & E where it would become apparent to the doctors that something shifty was going on, the police are called and the husband reveals all as he can't take the pressure.
 
  • #49
She was a burglar. She was inside someone's house throwing valuables out the window to her accomplice. A neighbor shot her.
 
  • #50
AHH no! She WAS a burglar, and she was stealing a boomerang. Only things didn't pan out how she'd liked them too.
 

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