A New Year Riddle

Four friends - John, Jesse, Gerald and George - went to a New Year Ball with their wives. At first, each danced with his own wife only, but after midnight the couples went wild. Eileen danced with John, Arleen with Darleen's husband, Marleen with Arleen's husband, Jesse with Gerald's wife, and Gerald with John's wife.

Can you untangle - who is married to whom?

Your answers accepted any time until midnight on Sunday on our Family Puzzle Marathon. They will be hidden till then and everyone who submitted something reasonable will get a puzzle point.

This riddle is from a Russian puzzle book by C. Koval.
Party image from flickr, distributed under CCL.

A couple from Florida

Last weekend I was vacationing on the West Coast of Florida. While it was still rainy and cold in MA, FL was brilliantly blue, hot and shiny. In general for Massachusetts folk, it is a state you are allowed to descend only after retirement. Florida dreams are what keeps us going through over-scheduled routine, stressful work days and frigid winters. When visualizing paradise most of us think of Florida's clean white sand, palm trees and still leisure.



In Florida I met a peculiar couple. His age digits were a reverse of her age digits. They were relaxed and open about their age differences and said that last year he was exactly twice as old as she was. What are their ages?

Image by Fabio, distributed under CCL.

Answers accepted all day long on Friday May 13th and Saturday May 14th, on our Family Puzzle Marathon. They will be hidden until Sunday morning (EST) and everyone who solved it will get a puzzle point. Please, explain your answer.

Love Triangle

Dating and Love - what do they have to do with math? This mischievous Valentine's puzzle shows that math may very well be the guiding hand in some romantic adventures.
One man had two lovers. One was a witty, fashionable journalist that lived in the North of the city, and another, passionate and eccentric actress that lived in the South. The man couldn't quite make up his mind about whom he loves more. So every day after work he walked to the Subway, went down the escalator and took the first train that would come. On his right were trains heading North, on his left were trains going South. Whatever train came first determined which lover he would spend the night with. He thought that because the trains go on a regular schedule, with the same frequency in both directions, he would end up spending about the same amount of time with each. He told each of the lovers that on the days he is not with her, he is travelling on a business assignment. All was going well, until one day the journalist confronted him claiming that he has been spending only about 2 days per week with her, while the actress started hinting that he has been crowding her life.

I do not understand, thought man. The trains are regular, I choose randomly, why do I get to one lover much more frequently than another?
What do you think?

Image above is by Nick Sherman distributed under CCL.

Answers accepted all day long on Friday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon. They will be hidden until Saturday morning (EST) and everyone who contributed something reasonable will get a puzzle point. Please, explain your answer.

Uninvited Thanksgiving Guest

You have been enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with your family, when the doorbell unexpectedly rings and a young gentleman that appears to be completely lost is inquiring whether Jane by any chance lives in your house. You tell him that you have Janette, Julia and Judith but no Jane, and you ask him how you can help him find this Jane.

He tells you the story of how he met a young Math student named Jane in Cambridge a few weeks ago. They spent a great evening together and then spoke a few times over the phone. Two days ago Jane invited him to join her and her family for the Thanksgiving dinner but she mused that he should figure the address from a puzzle. She told him that she lives on the even side of the long Beacon street. There are six houses on her side of the street in her block, and the sum of their numbers is 9870. She lives in the house with the lowest number among them.

She told him to figure out the number and come around 4pm. It is 6pm now and he was knocking on every first even-numbered doorbell searching for her house.

Do you think you can you help him?

(this puzzle is adapted from the The Mensa Genius Quiz-a-day book by A.F.Salny)
Answers accepted all day long on Friday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon. They will be hidden until Saturday morning (EST) and everyone who provided a correct solution will get a puzzle point.

Dating Math Puzzle

Image by BostonBill

On a hot date, young gentleman was trying to guess the age of his new acquaintance. She was flirting and refusing to reveal it. Then he offered her the following game:
He asked her to take the number of the month in which she was born (January - 1, February - 2, etc).
Double it.
Add 4.
Multiply by 50.
Add her age.
Subtract 200.
And tell him the answer.

After that he looked at her very suspiciously and quickly drove her back to her house. Why?

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon Be first to solve three puzzles and get a prize!

The Case of the Arctic Hero

Young man has been trying to impress his dancing partner at the high school prom. He told her about his father who participated in the Arctic Expedition. One winter day his father found himself on a piece of ice that broke loose and was drifting out to sea. He quickly realized that he and the his dogs would freeze out to death unless he started a fire. Alas, he had used up all of his matches. So, he got out a small magnifying glass from his instrument kit and, tearing off sheets from his Arctic Guide book, laid them on a steel instrument box. By focusing the sun's rays through the glass onto the paper, he started a hearty blaze. Fortunately, an ice cutter picked him and the dogs up after 24 hours. Young man was obviously very proud of his father, but the girl - his dancing partner - was rather suspicious. Why?

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon Be first to solve three puzzles and get a prize!

This great puzzle is one of the Two-Minute Mysteries from D. J. Sobol book.

Ferrari to the Rescue of Jealousy

Three married couples went on vacation together. They took two cars: a two-seater Ferrari and a family size Toyota Corolla. On the way back, the Toyota Corolla got stuck and all six people found themselves on the road with a two seater car two hours away from home. What to do? Car rental or AAA is not an option in puzzles. Someone has to drive back and forth in two-seater Ferrari to bring everyone back home. Everyone in this group has a drivers license.

The problem is that after all the vacation adventures all three husbands are extremely jealous. None of them would let his wife be in the presence of the other men unless some other woman is also present. How could they all get home?
Assume that family names are: Smith, Jones and Gabrielli.

Enter your thoughts on our Family Puzzle Marathon page. Be first to solve three puzzles and get a prize!

A Magical Year

I remember watching a romantic movie where a young couple was sitting across from each other on a beach on New Year's eve. The guy took a stick and scribbled the number of the upcoming year on the sand between them. The fireworks followed, and the camera slowly zoomed out and spinned and we saw that the year appears the same for both, young woman and her lover. What was the year?

Enter your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon page. Solve three and get a prize!

A Fairytale Puzzle

A wicked witch turned a handsome prince into a frog, and threw the prince-frog into the cold and dark bottom of the well. She then made the bucket rope disappear.



A beautiful princess-to-be was passing by and heard the croaking of the frog. She thought that he might be a prince and decided to get him out. What length of a rope does she need to find, if she can see that the diameter of a cylinder where rope rolls is 5" and she remembers that it usually takes 10 rotations to get the bucket from the bottom all the way up?

Please explain your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

Jealous Housewives Puzzle

In an attempt to select new actors for the Jealous Housewives sequel, movie studios invited a number of married couples to spend time in a secluded village. Most of the couples stayed faithful to each other, as everyone knew that in the Jealous Housewives spirit a woman will kill her husband at night if she hears of his infidelity. With a lot of spare time on their hands, all the participants were involved in a heavy gossiping, so that someone's infidelity would be immediately known to everyone except from his/her spouse, as even gossipers were not keen on the bloody ending. Other than these couples, no movie crew was present in this village. Participants were filmed by hidden cameras. After a week of such leisure life, a series director stopped by and revealed a secret: "Someone from the participants has been unfaithful." Next night everybody expected a bloody outcome, but nothing happened. The night after that everyone appeared to still be alive. Seven tense but peaceful nights passed. On the eights morning a few men did not come to the breakfast table. How many men were killed that night?

This puzzle was suggested by W., details found on the Grey Labyrinth site.

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

Image by Steelight, via Flicker distributed under CCL.

Couples Night Out

Two couples: Phil and Rachel, and John and Linda, reserved tickets to attend a concert together. Unfortunately, John and Phil, have argued at work the day before and were not very eager to sit together at the concert. But each of them was OK to sit next to the other's wife. Linda was pregnant and needed to sit at the corner sit to be able to sneak to the bathroom if necessary without disturbing anyone. How should they divide the seats?


Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

Classmates dot com

Two high school sweethearts find each other through the Classmates.com website. Woman tells that she has three children now, the product of their age is 72. Men is nervous to know the ages of the children and demands more information joking that they may be 1, 1 and 72. Then woman offers another clue - a sum of her kids ages. Men says that this is still not enough. "Ok, admits woman, my youngest likes chess." That does the trick and men is relived. Why?

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

Marriage or Death

A poor but honest knight wants to marry a beautiful princess, and she wants to marry him. The king offers the knight a choice. He can draw one of two slips of paper from a golden box. One will say "Marriage," the other "Death." The princess manages to whisper to her suitor that both slips say "Death." But the knight and the beautiful princess are wed. How did he accomplish this? (from The Mensa Genius Quiz Book)

Speed Dating

You reserved a club space for two hours to hold a speed dating event.
Assuming that you would need 20 mins for setup, 10 mins for cleanup, 13 mins for introduction and you are planning to give each couple 5 mins to interact and 3 mins to switch places, what is the maximum number of people of each gender that you could invite?

Cheating

My husband spent last night with his only brother's wife's only brother-in-law's wife. What shall I do to him?

Married Couple

A trophy wife said to her husband, "I'm twenty nine years younger than you are, as you well know; we've been happily married for forty-two years, and in that time, I just realized, our combined ages have doubled!" How old were they when they were married?