http://www.tnp.

sg/news/singapore-news/can-you-solve-these-brain-teasers

Q1 Four married couples, with names Albert, Bob, Charlie, Don, Elaine, Fanny, Gillian and Helen,
meet for a game of chess. They form four groups of two players. The following information is given:

(i) Bob plays against Elaine.

(ii) Albert plays against Charlie's wife.

(iii) Fanny plays against Gillian's husband.

(iv) Don plays against Albert's wife.

(v) Gillian plays against Elaine's husband.

Who is Bob's wife?

Q2 Two pipes can be used to fill up a swimming pool. The first can fill the pool in three hours, and
the second can fill the pool in four hours. There is also a drain that can empty the pool in six hours.
Both pipes were being used to fill the pool. After an hour, a careless maintenance man accidentally
opened the drain. How long more will it take for the pool to fill?

Q3 Jane, June, Jean and Jenny are good friends. Something fascinating can be found mathematically
with their names. Each letter of their name can be associated with an integer greater than one and
the sum incidentally gives their current age. Jane is 16, June is a year older while Jenny is the oldest
at 19. Suppose no two different letters are associated with the same integer. Which of the following
numbers is a possible value for "u"?

(A) 3 (B) 4 (C) 5 (D) 6 (E) 7

THE ANSWERS

Q1)

Since (i) says Bob play against Elaine, Elaine can neither be Charlie’s nor Albert’s wife. So either Bob
or Don is Elaine’s husband. However, since Elaine’s husband plays against Gillian (v), her husband
must be Don.

As Don plays against Albert’s wife (iv), Albert’s wife must be Gillian.

(iii) tells us Fanny plays against Gillian’s husband so Fanny plays against Albert which means (by (ii) )
that she is Charlie’s wife. That leaves Helen who must then be Bob’s wife.

Q2)

In the first hour the two pipes fill \frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{4} = \frac{7}{12} of the pool per hour.

After the drain was opened, the pool is filled at \frac{7}{12} - \frac{1}{6} = \frac{5}{12} of the pool
per hour.

So it takes one more hour to fill the pool.

Q3)

We consider each possible value of “u”. Since the names all share the same letters “J, n,e”, we can
work out that the relations “u-a = 1? and “n+y = u+2?.

If u=3 then a=2 and n+y = 5. This would be impossible since (n,y) must be (2,3) or (3,2) but different
letters have distinct values.

If u=4 then a=3 and n+y = 6. Again, impossible.

Similar arguments hold for u = 5 or u= 6.

If u=7, then a=6 and n+y = 9 and it is possible to have n=5, and y=4. Note that J+n+e = 10 which
means (J,e)=(2,3) or (3,2) gives a possible solution.
Friday, March 6, 2015

[Pri20150306TTT] The Tricky Triangle

Question

Introduction
This is another one of those tricky primary school mathematics questions
involving areas. A perfunctory glance at the area seems to suggest there are four
pieces. Later you might realise that you can think of it as two quarter-circles with two
little 45°-45°-90° isosceles triangles removed.

Plan
Our plan will be to first find the areas of the two quarter circles and then to
subtract the areas of the isosceles triangles. This is our usual divide-and-conquer
strategy [ Heuristics H10 & H11 ]. Notice that the two quarter-circles can be
rearranged [H09] into a semi-circle with radius 10 cm. Simple enough.