Puzzle Antics

By William F. Bultas

If you need a little brain teasing, these ten puzzles should do the trick. Feel free to use a dictionary & any other reference or calculating aids you think might help, but don't get help from other people if you really want to test your brain power. Try your skill at these logical, spatial, word play, & mathematical puzzles, and always keep an eye open for the unexpected. Have fun! 


Number Correct           Brain Power Level
     0-1                 Low
     2-3                 Average
     4-5                 High
      6                  Very High
     7-8                 Powerful
     9-10                Incredible!


1. Andy, Bart, and Chris are eating at Smiley's All You Can Eat Pizza Buffet. Andy made 2.4 times as many trips to the buffet as Bart, and Bart made 6 fewer trips than Chris. What is the smallest possible total number of trips the 3 made to the buffet, assuming that each person made at least one trip?

2. You have a small pyramidal structure (4 sides, 4 points, and 6 edges). Two ants rest at two different points on the pyramid. They simultaneously move to different points on the pyramid, moving along an edge of the pyramid. They arrive at their new points at exactly the same time, then begin again toward different points. If they can never touch the same edge twice (regardless of which ant touched it - Ant A can't touch the same edge touched by Ant B, for example), and can never meet on any point or edge, what is the maximum number of different edges the ants can traverse?

3. Find the answer to the preceding problem for 3 ants.

4. Find the answer to puzzle #2 for 4 ants.

5. What creature is hidden in the sequence of letters below? You must use each letter exactly once, and there is a pattern.

IYIFHSGNLF


6. Only one of the following four colors of mushrooms is safe to be eaten right now. Which one?

Purple: Only and always poisonous if Red mushrooms are.

Yellow: Poisonous 6 months of the year.

Green: Always and only safe if Purple mushrooms are poisonous.

Red: Safe to be eaten 6 months of the year.

7. Try puzzle #6 again, but this time exactly two colors of mushrooms are safe to be eaten. Which ones?

8. You are captured by cultists, & imprisoned in a dungeon. You manage to escape from your cell, and find 4 doors. You know that only one of them is safe and will lead you out of the dungeon, and the other 3 are trapped. Each door has a statement carved into it, and you know that 2 of the statements are true, and 2 of them are false. Which door will get you out of the dungeon safely?

Door 1: I'm not trapped.

Door 2: You don't want to open me.

Door 3: I am trapped.

Door 4: The statement on Door 1 is false.

9. Try puzzle #8 again, but this time 3 of the doors lead you to safety, and only 1 of them is trapped. Which door(s) is/are definitely safe to open?

10. You have one normal clock that reads the correct time, and a strange clock that is in all ways the same as the first clock, except that its hands move to the left instead of to the right. The 2 clocks show the same time at exactly 4:30 PM (but neither clock indicates AM or PM). What times do the clocks concurrently show that are minimally farthest off from each other? Keep in mind that we do not know if the times shown are AM or PM. Example: The correct clock shows 5:00 when the other clock shows 4:00. This means the times could be as far off as 23, 13, 11, or 1 hour(s). Given that they could be only 1 hour off at this time, 1 is the minimally highest number for this time, & is thus not the answer to the puzzle.

Answers