Daily puzzles/problems.

[Scheherazade]

Hang on. Why?

What Bill said:

Whoa, I was stumped, and it just now came to me in a flash. (add together the number representing each letter's ordinal position in the English alphabet, and you get the shown sum)

Still Greta's turn

[Scheherazade]

Since Greta is not around:

I was nine times the age of my nephew six years ago and I am three times his age now. What are our current ages?

[Sapphire]

I think this asks for the use algabra

Lets take I for my age and N for my nephew's age.

statement 1] (I - 6) = 9*(N - 6)
statement 2] I = 3*N

Insert statement 2 in statement 1

3N - 18 = 9N - 54
6N = 36
N = 6

So my nephew is 6 years old and I am 18.

[Scheherazade]

You are on the right track but not exactly. Read the question and second half of your calculation again!

[MarkBastable]

Eight and twenty four now.

(Two and eighteen six years ago.)



------------------------

Here's a real life one....

I woke up in the dark on Tuesday and although I don't own a bedside clock, I ascertained that it was twenty-five past four. I went back to sleep.

I awoke in the morning to find that my colleague Adam had texted me our co-worker Abena's phone number at twenty-seven minutes past four.

Why?

[prendrelemick]

Did you acertain the time using your phone?
Are Adam and Abena next to each other on your speed dial?
Why am I asking these questions?

[billl]

Perhaps Abena called and Mark sort of woke up by the time it stopped ringing. He noted the time (perhaps he even checked the time on his still lit-up phone), and then went back to sleep, wondering at the ungodly hour and why he might've suddenly woke up like that. Abena calls Adam, and Adam texts Mark with Abena's number, so that he can call her back, perhaps thinking that Mark didn't want to answer an unknown number in the middle of the night. Mark sleeps right through the sound of the text's arrival.

[MarkBastable]

Adam hoped that his action would be to his advantage.

[Scheherazade]

So, why was Abena calling you so early (assuming it was 4.25 am)? Curious minds want to know.

Or maybe Abena was in the US or Australia (or some other country with different timezone)?

Anyhow, it is Bill's turn, yes?

[billl]

Whoa, did I get it right?


(Gotta go right now, but I will try to come up with something if it turns out I'm right. It might be a day or two, though, so someone else is certainly welcome to provide a puzzle if they want, and if I did happen to get it right...)

[MarkBastable]

No, not right. But everyone's heading in the right direction. Here's the answer...

Picking up my phone in the dark, my fingers naturally fall across two buttons, one of which brings up the contact list and the other of which makes a call - and it calls the first person on the contact list which, because they're in alphabetical order, is Adam. Apparently I've done this several times over the last couple of months, always in the middle of the night.

Having been woken yet again by an accidental call from me in the small hours, Adam texted me Abena's number, knowing that she would go above him alphabetically in the contact list, and she'd get all future sleep-disturbing calls.

Brilliant, really, especially at half past four in the morning.

[kasie]

IOU a puzzle - it's not a great one but it's (fairly) topical:

Why would a man who made a pair of spectacles in the summer not be expecting to spend Christmas working in Australia?

[Scheherazade]

Something to do with the fact that it is summer in Australia at that time of the year?

[kasie]

Hmmm - sort of.....

[prendrelemick]

Because he is a Cricketer?
If "a pair of spectacles" refer to two "ducks" or zeros (OO) in a match. Then any Cricketer who made them this summer, would not be touring Australia this winter.