What five-letter word doubles its size when you add two letters?

No, sorry, if all the hats could have been either BorW, or any mixture thereby, no one could figure out ANY hat color.

**Villains always lie, good guys always tell the truth.

You see three men on the road and you ask the first one “What are you, a villain or a good guy?” You cannot make out his mumbled answer so you ask the second man “What did he say?” The second man responds “He said he is a villain.” The third man says “The second man is lying.” You must tell me exactly what two of the men are, good guy’s or villain’s?**
A farmer had a stone that he used to measure grain on his scale. One day his neighbor borrowed the stone, and when he returned, it was broken into four pieces. The neighbor was very apologetic, but the farmer thanked the neighbor for doing him a big favor. The farmer said that now he can measure his grain in one pound increments starting at one pound all the way to forty pounds using these four stones. What do each one of the four stones weigh?

2 villians
1 good guy

Stones of 12,11,9,8 pounds each, assuming the use of a balance.

The first response was wrong, entering correction.

The first person can be either, but you asked for two of the men. One of the remaining is a good guy, one is a bad guy.

Use stones weighing 1,3,9,27 pounds.

Phobia, how do you weigh 39 pounds with your set?

To be more specific, the second man must be a villain (“he said he is a villain” can not be a truthful statement), and the third must be a good guy.

-ellis

39 pounds of grain:

Put the 11 pound stone on one side, and 11 pounds of grain on the other side. Remove the 11 pound stone. Put the 9+8 pound stones with the grain,and fill the other side with the 28 pounds of grain. Give the customer the 11 pounds from the side with the stones and the 28 pounds from the othe side of the balance.

Here’s another one.

You have 12 coins. One of the coins is counterfeit, and is indistinguishable except by weight. However, you do not know if it is heavier or lighter than the other 11 coins. You have a balance, but can only use it 3 times. Determine which coin is counterfeit, and whether it is heavier or lighter than the others.

-ellis

JC and Ellis… Very good! Sorry Phobia…

Ive seen the coin one in another MB I frequent and went on and on for two pages! Im not even sure I got it once the answer was posted! You are very cruel to post such a riddle :slight_smile:

Heres a fun one. Johnny’s mother has three children. They are 8, 10 and 13 years old and have brown, blonde and red hair respectively. Their names are April, June and what?

Johnny.

I assume no one will get the answer due to the complexity, but if you are trying then don’t click the link.

ooops didn’t add the link here it is

http://home.wxs.nl/~faase009/Ha12coins.html

Hey i just calculated the answer. I don’t know if its the one you’re expecting but i guess since you guys called it complex and it took me 5 seconds to figure out so i’m a genius right???

My answer is:
You make 3 groups of 4 coins each and weigh two of them against each other, once and if they come equal you know the one you didn’t weigh was correct, otherwise you remove the lighter coin group and weigh the heavier one with the other group and get see if they balance then the lighter one was the one otherwise if that group tilts the scale to the same level as the lighter ones then you know it was the heavier ones otherwise it was the other ones.

out of this group you make a group of two coins and weigh the group against the other and see. If you had selected the coin lighter group previously then the coin is one of the lighter ones and otherwise it is one of the heavier ones. Then since you have groups of two coins you can just use your HAND to estimate which one is heavier and which one is lighter and woohooo you have the fake coin.

I think i cheated in the end though so maybe i’m not so smart after all :smiley:

Love
Dumbledore

Nice try, Prof, but your hand just ain’t gonna cut it. Three uses of the balance is all you need. A couple of contingencies are rather easy to solve, but it’s getting all of them that is the fun part.

-ellis

Let’s go back to the Good Guys and the Villains.

A says: “B is a GG.”

B says: “A is not a GG.”

Prove that one of them is telling the truth but is not a GG.

Don’t forget to consider the possibility that a speaker is neither a GG nor a V.

Cribbed from Raymond Smullyan via Martin Gardner.

What five-letter word doubles its size when you add two letters?

It seems to me that it could be either.

A lies (is a V). That means B is telling the truth. So B is either a GG or a TTnGG. But if B were a GG, then A would be telling a truth, which would go against his standards. So, if A is a V then B is a TTnGG, the conditions are met.

A is the TTnGG. He speaks the truth, and B is a GG. B must speak the truth, and correctly identifies A as not being a GG.

So, as long as there are no restrictions on who can be a V and who can be a GG, either one of them could be the TTnGG.

-ellis

what word does the inverse of the op when adding two letters to a four letter word

what four letter word does the inverse of the op when adding two letters

I keep messinbg up, I should say it can preform the inverse. It is possible for this word to become half its original size by adding two letters to the previous four letter version