Best...Puzzle...Ever....

[BryonD]

a clock

 

[Pielorinho]

a clock

Perhaps a clock, but in order for it to work, you need to refine the answer:

It's a clock tower, a really big one, filled with a thousand people who have all suffered a horrible accident -- or, rather, all of them but three. All the rest are quadriplegics, and of the three who aren't, one of them lost an arm in the accident that robbed the rest of their limbs.

Honestly, it's a pretty easy riddle once you know the answer.

Daniel

 

[apsuman]

I post this one earlier but made a BIG mistake, and while I edited to correct perhpas everyone read it and did not catch the edit. So, here it is in it's correct version:

You are blindfolded and handed a deck of 52 cards. (Alternatively you are not blindfolded and handed a deck of 52 cards but can not tell those upside down from those right side up)

Exactly 13 are upside down randomly scattered throughout the deck.

You must manipulate the cards into 2 piles so that there are an equal number of upside down cards in the two piles.

 

[Pielorinho]

apsuman, big fan of Car Talk, are you?

I'm not a puzzle guy, and usually I can't get their puzzles at all. But for some reason I got this one right away: I heard it the week after they first announced it, so immediately following a summary of the puzzle they gave the answer, and I was still able to figure it out before they explained it. I felt all smart and stuff.

Daniel

 

[BryonD]

Honestly, it's a pretty easy riddle once you know the answer.
Daniel

Most are.

 

[Verequus]

I post this one earlier but made a BIG mistake, and while I edited to correct perhpas everyone read it and did not catch the edit. So, here it is in it's correct version:

You are blindfolded and handed a deck of 52 cards. (Alternatively you are not blindfolded and handed a deck of 52 cards but can not tell those upside down from those right side up)

Exactly 13 are upside down randomly scattered throughout the deck.

You must manipulate the cards into 2 piles so that there are an equal number of upside down cards in the two piles.

I think the answer is easy: Cut the pile of cards in the middle, so you have two piles of halved cards with respectively 13 upside down cards. Alternatively you could burn down the cards and part the ash.

 

[Fieari]

I think the answer is easy: Cut the pile of cards in the middle, so you have two piles of halved cards with respectively 13 upside down cards. Alternatively you could burn down the cards and part the ash.

Cutting the gordian knot, are you? Hehe...

 

[Pielorinho]

Huh -- I guess that answer to the puzzle would work, inasmuch as you could say that half a card is no longer a card, and that each pile would therefore have no upside down cards in it.

Assume, though, that you must arrange the pile of 52 cards so that you end up two piles of cards (totalling 52), and there's exactly the same number of upside-down cards in each pile; further, you may use no tools. This is a different problem from the original one, but it gives you fewer loopholes .

 

[MerakSpielman]

Ooo! ooo! Another loophole! Deal the deck in half, and set each half with the edges of the cards on the table... so none of the cards are upside down!



Trying to think of a real answer, though.

 

[Pielorinho]

Darn you, merak! The room has no tables in it, and the cards are normal cards, and when you're done with the process you gotta take your hands off the cards.

And before you ask, no, your seeing-eye-monkey cannot help you.

Daniel