Mathematics Stack Exchange
Mathematics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [puzzle]

For questions about the mathematical principles behind puzzle, games, riddles, or their possible solutions. Questions that are not strictly mathematical in nature should be asked on Puzzling Stack Exchange.

Many puzzles, games, and riddles are based on mathematical concepts. This tag is for questions that ask about the mathematics behind a puzzle, game, or riddle, or about the solutions to mathematical puzzles.

If you already know the answer to the puzzle you are posting, you might consider posting your question on Puzzling Stack Exchange, instead. If you do end up posting your question on Mathematics Stack Exchange (MSE), please read the following meta posts on these kinds of questions before asking your question:

If you do end up posting on MSE, please make it clear in your question that you are "puzzling" the community and that you will be answer the question yourself if no one in the community posts your desired solution.

3301 questions
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Puzzle ranking numbers

There are 10 distinct numbers in a list. Except the 1st and 10th numbers, the value of each number lies between the value of its immediate neighbors. If the 4th number is less than 7th, what is the smallest number in the list…
Fin27
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How ball sort puzzle works?

Ball sort puzzle is that offline game, there is also another form of this game called water sort puzzle. In the game there are n stacks containing different colors of balls. There are 4 balls of each color and in total 4n balls. Out of that, there…
rushengqulao_
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27 horses race. Find best 5. How many races?

27 horses race. 5 each race. What is the minimum number of races to find the 5 fastest ones? My approach: 1st round: 5 races for a total of 25 horses, leaving out horses #26 and #27. find the fastest 5 from those 5 races $\begin{bmatrix}1 & 2 & 3 &…
Mining
  • 560
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1 answer

Proving a simpler test cannot exist for testing $x - \operatorname{reverse}(x) \equiv 0 \pmod{k}$

I'm looking at the following programming puzzle: Beautiful Days at the Movies Here's a summary of the problem: An integer $d$ is "beautiful" w/respect to $k$ if $$d - \operatorname{reverse}(d) \equiv 0\pmod{k}$$ where $\operatorname{reverse}(d)$…
Brian Vandenberg
  • 932
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Fastest way to find a path along a grid of dots, given a specified start and end, touching every dot without retracing a route?

How to solve this problem in the fastest way possible?
Football Warfare
  • 1
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1 answer

Leaky Bucket and total volume

I’m working on a problem set and i’m just stuck on a question. You have a leaking bucket. When the bucket is full, it loses 1L of water in a minute. After 7 minutes, the bucket is half empty. What is the volume of the bucket knowing that the speed…
user932635
  • 11
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1 answer

Chimp and Guavas

George the chimp found a large guava tree full of ripe fruit and decided to celebrate this find with his friends. He gave half of the total bunch and one extra to his closest pal. He then gives half of the remaining guavas and one extra to his 2nd…
user913279
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1 answer

Solvability of a sliding puzzle of size n*n

Hey guys according to this link right here: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/check-instance-15-puzzle-solvable/ "If N is odd, then puzzle instance is solvable if number of inversions is even in the input state. If N is even, puzzle instance is solvable…
Sixuan Gu
  • 71
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1 answer

Weighing scale error and the minimum number of same weights

Problem: Philip’s weighing scale has an error of ±10 grams. What is the smallest number of identical copies of a book that Philip should weigh together so that the error of one book will be ±0.5 grams? Attempted method: It's a contest math problem…
NeoStar
  • 13
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1 answer

Puzzle: Finding the next number in the sequence of numbers

I'm trying to solve this puzzle and couldn't come up with the next value
TechnoCorner
  • 119
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1 answer

How to calculate the number of border pieces for a jigsaw puzzle?

For example I have picture which can be any size, and I want to make jigsaw puzzle with an approximate number of pieces. So I know the picture width and height, I know the approximate number of pieces. I need to know the puzzle's border dimensions…
Fovop58
  • 1
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A difficult puzzle about filling holes with colored blocks

This puzzle originated from a very difficult challenge I came across while developing a game. I initially intended to post it on Stack Overflow, but this turned out to be primarily a logic/math issue. I must admit I wasn't able to do a lot of…
Henrique Colini
  • 1
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2 answers

Why is the equal volume sufficient to solve the puzzle without any calculations?

I was reading the following puzzle: There is a glass of juice and a glass of water with identical volumes. We take 1 full spoon of the juice and put it in the glass of water. After briefly stirring the mixture, we put a full spoon of the…
Jim
  • 1,589
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Mathematics puzzles

I have a question about this math puzzle and the question offers the numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: I already solved it: A=4, B=9, C=10, D=8, E=7, F=3, G=1, H=6, J=5 However, it took me a while because I was trying the possibilities without a…
ADAM78
  • 73
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Find one fake coin out of 14 in 3 scales

There is a pile with 14 coins. One of them is fake and has a different weight than the others, which are the same. Using a balance scale, find the fake coin with no more than 3 scales. Based on the wiki article it is believed that no more than 13…
Ilya Gazman
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