Lateral thinking puzzles

[MostlyClueless]

-please remove, this post has become useless-

[Scuba_Ben]

The puzzles posted by Cormac262, Argent Towers, and Hampshire are normal-logic puzzles, hardly lateral thinking.

Lateral thinking has to break logic. For example, here’s a puzzle statement that was a fad on the Lateral Thinking Puzzles Forum some years ago:

A ruler lies on the ground, broken. Nearby a small man dances with glee. What happened?

And my contribution to the fad: Quickie: A ruler lies on the ground, broken. Nearby a whole bunch of people dance with glee. What happened?

[aldiboronti]

@indian

I didn’t see any rose or petals in that page !

From Wikipedia:

Petals Around the Rose is a lateral thinking mind game traditionally played with five dice.

It is played by computer program or with physical dice that are rolled by a Potentate of the Rose, a person who knows the secret of the game. For each roll of all dice, there is a single numerical solution. The players then attempt to arrive at this solution by inductive reasoning. If they do not, the Potentate of the Rose will tell it to them, and it is their task to figure out the solution for the next roll.

There are three rules:[1]

1. The name of the game is “Petals Around the Rose”, and the name is significant.
2. The answer is always a nonnegative even number.
3. Anyone who knows the game may give the answer to any roll, but they must not disclose the reasoning.

Traditionally, the Potentate can only tell others these three rules, as well as the “answer” to each roll. Getting six correct answers in a row is usually considered proof that you know the solution, and have become a Potentate of the Rose.

I didn’t link because it gives the solution. The problem is easily solved though, once you work out the reason for the name of the game.

[otorophile]

My contributions:
A monk has 2 nonidentical incense sticks. Each burns for 1 hour, not uniformly. He needs to pray for exactly 45 minutes. How can he do this with just the sticks and a lighter?

How can you measure all objects of weight 1, 2, … 121 with just 5 weights on a balance scale?

[tdn]

There is this classic that used to be used (maybe still is) by Microsoft.

You need to make a desk calendar. The day part of the calendar is a couple of wooden cubes, each with single digits on each side. To show the first of the month, for instance, you’d turn the cubes so that the 0 of one cube and the 1 of the other are showing, as 01. To show the 10th, you could just reverse them. All days 1-9 need a leading 0, and you need to be able to show all numbers from 01 to 31.

How do you number the cubes?

[Indian]

@aldiboronti

From Wikipedia:

I didn’t link because it gives the solution. The problem is easily solved though, once you work out the reason for the name of the game.

yes !

[MentalGuy]

@tdn

There is this classic that used to be used (maybe still is) by Microsoft.

You need to make a desk calendar. The day part of the calendar is a couple of wooden cubes, each with single digits on each side. To show the first of the month, for instance, you’d turn the cubes so that the 0 of one cube and the 1 of the other are showing, as 01. To show the 10th, you could just reverse them. All days 1-9 need a leading 0, and you need to be able to show all numbers from 01 to 31.

How do you number the cubes?

Or for an even bigger challenge and one that does require some lateral thinking, how can you show all the numbers from 1 to 44?

[tdn]

@indian

yes !

Quite easy, once you go through it a few times.

[Malleus_Incus_Stapes]

@cormac262

Ahem…the OP was requesting “puzzles” and not necessarily “answers” (should have used a spoiler box like jjimm)

No, it’s for someone else.

I’m not looking for math problems. I’m looking for ones like the Petals Around The Rose thing. Concrete riddles, not abstract ones.

[the_first_supraliminal]

@Isamu

“What is the best way to move Mt Fuji from its present location to the US?”

Put the US embassy at the top.

[aldiboronti]

@otorophile

My contributions:
A monk has 2 nonidentical incense sticks. Each burns for 1 hour, not uniformly. He needs to pray for exactly 45 minutes. How can he do this with just the sticks and a lighter?

Got it!

Light one incense stick at both ends, the other at only one end. The first will burn out in hakf an hour. Then light the unlit end of the remaining stick, which should have 30 minutes burning time left. Now it’s lit at both ends it will burn out in half that time, 15 minutes.

That makes 45 minutes. Ta da!

[the_first_supraliminal]

There’s a book called How Would You Move Mount Fuji?

[Chronos]

Conquer Japan? Or just name something in the US “Mt Fuji” and change the name of the current one.

The latter answer is the one I was going to give, and is probably the correct answer to the Microsoft interview question. Yes, I know that these things aren’t supposed to have a single “correct” solution, but this is a Microsoft interview we’re talking about here… Do you really think they want to hire nonconformists? The key is that, when moving big things around on a computer, you almost always want to just shuffle the names around, rather than moving the thing itself.

Since the OP started off with the (in)famous Nine Dots puzzle: Everyone’s seen the solution that uses four lines. But the way the puzzle is usually presented, it’s possible to do it with only three.

[the_first_supraliminal]

There’s a book called How Would You Move Mount Fuji?
It relates a number of puzzles, not all answered.

[MentalGuy]

@MentalGuy

Or for an even bigger challenge and one that does require some lateral thinking, how can you show all the numbers from 1 to 44?

I misremembered this puzzle. It is the numbers from 1 to 43 and you can just use a single block for the one digit numbers.

[Trepa_Mayfield]

@Scuba_Ben

The puzzles posted by Cormac262, Argent Towers, and Hampshire are normal-logic puzzles, hardly lateral thinking.

Lateral thinking has to break logic. For example, here’s a puzzle statement that was a fad on the Lateral Thinking Puzzles Forum some years ago:

A ruler lies on the ground, broken. Nearby a small man dances with glee. What happened?

And my contribution to the fad: Quickie: A ruler lies on the ground, broken. Nearby a whole bunch of people dance with glee. What happened?

The TV store had TVs proclaiming world peace. When the people started dancing, one of them dropped a ruler, and it broke.

[tdn]

@Malleus_Incus_Stapes

I’m not looking for math problems. I’m looking for ones like the Petals Around The Rose thing. Concrete riddles, not abstract ones.

Does this fit the bill?

A man is camping. He sees a bear walking. He decides to follow the bear.

He follows it for a mile south. Then the bear changes direction and goes east. The man follows it for another mile. Then the bear turns north. The man follows it for another mile. He decides to stop following the bear, and as he’s back at his camp, decides to rest.

What color is the bear?

[the_first_supraliminal]

The Mensa tests usually include a few outside the box questions, that rely on realizing letters look different or like digits in a mirror, etc.
The IQ test, Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, does not use them for the simple reason that few are new and so they are often quickly answered if you’ve seen them before but not if you haven’t, making it a memory test of fun books.
Wiki List of games with concealed rules

[Skammer]

Mt. Fuji - I would argue that if you are making the current mountain a US territory (by conquering Japan or establishing a US Embassy) you have not “moved [it] from its current location.”

What’s the cake answer?

[Scuba_Ben]

pedescribe, I’m sorry, but you did not phrase your response in the form of a yes/no question.