Riddle: A soccer fan, upset by the defeat of his favorite team, slept restlessly. In his dream a goalkeeper was practicing in a large unfurnished room, tossing a soccer ball against the wall and then catching it.
But the goalkeeper grew smaller and smaller and then changed into a ping-pong ball while the soccer ball was swelled up into a huge cast-iron ball. The iron ball circled round madly, trying to crush the ping-pong ball, how did the ping-pong find safety whithout leaving the floor?
Answer: If the ping-pong ball rolls flush against the wall, the cast-iron ball cannot crush it.
Those who know geometry can determine that if the diameter of a large ball is at least 5.83 (3+2(square root of 2) times as large as the diameter of a little ball, then the little ball will be safe if it hugs the wall.
A cast-iron ball that is larger than a soccer ball is more than 4.83 times as large in diameter as a ping-pong ball.
Riddle: When the celebrated German mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) was nine he was asked to add all the integers from 1 through 100. He quickly added 1 to 100, 2 to 99, and so on for 50 pairs of numbers each adding to 101.
Answer: 50 X 101=5,050.
What is the sum of all the digits in integers from 1 through 1,000,000,000? (That's all the digits in all the numbers, not all the numbers themselves.)
Answer: The numbers can be grouped by pairs:
999,999,999 and 0;
999,999,998 and 1'
999,999,997 and 2;
and so on....
There are half a billion pairs, and the sum of the digits in each pair is 81. The digits in the unpaired number, 1,000,000,000, add to 1. Then:
(500,000,000 X 81) + 1= 40,500,000,001.
Riddle: A boy presses a side of a blue pencil to a side of a yellow pencil, holding both pencils vertically. One inch of the pressed side of the blue pencil, measuring from its lower end, is smeared with paint. The yellow pencil is held steady while the boy slides the blue pencil down 1 inch, continueing to press it against the yellow one. He returns the blue pencil to its former position, then again it slides down 1 inch. He continues until he has lowered the blue pencil 5 times and raised it 5 times- 10 moves in all.
Supposed that during this time the paint neither dries nor diminishes in quantity. How many inches of each pencil will be sneared with paint after the tenth move?
Answer: At the start, 1inch of the yellow pencil gets smeared with wet paint. As the blue pencil is moved downward, a second inch of the blue pencils smears a second inch of the yellow pencil.
Each pair of down and up movesof the blue pencil smears 1 more inch of each pencil. 5 pairs of moves will smear 5 inches. This together with the initial inch, makes 6 inches for each pencil.
Riddle: An item is made from lead blanks in a lathe shop. Each blank suffices for 1 item. Lead shavings accumulated for making 6 items can be melted and made into a blank. How many items can be made from 36 blanks?
Answer: From 36 blanks there are 36 items made. The lead shavings are enough to make 6 blanks. Which make 6 more items. But don't stop here. The new shavings are good for 1 more item. Total: 43.