In each issue of the Automation Notebook we feature a section of brainteasers. These are the brainteaser answers from Issue 2, 2004 of the Automation Notebook. The brainteaser questions are repeated in black. The answers to the brainteaser questions are highlighted in red with explanations. You can view the brainteasers from Issue 2, 2004 without the answers here: http://library.automationdirect.com/brainteasers-issue-2-2004/
1. O T T F F _
What’s the next letter in sequence? (They are all letters.)
Answer: S (as in Six)
2. Two old friends meet after a long separation.
They swap stories, talk about jobs, families, etc.
The first man says “I have three children now.”
Second man asks, “Really? What are their ages?”
First: “I’ll give you clues and you try to figure them out. First, the product of their ages is 36.”
Second: “That’s not enough to solve it.”
First: “The sum of their ages is the same as the address where we used to play chess.”
Second: ” Okay. That’s still not enough to solve it.”
First: “The oldest looks a lot like her mother.”
Second: ” Okay, I know their ages.”
What are their ages?
Answer: The twins are two years old, the eldest daughter is nine.
Of all the combinations of the three ages whose products are 36, there are only two possibilities which have the same sum. These possibilities are 6, 6, & 1 and 2, 2, & 9. This is why the second man says “That’s still not enough to solve it” after the second clue. He knew the address – but he still couldn’t determine the answer. When he is told that there is an “oldest” child in the third clue, he then knows that the ages must be 2, 2, and 9.
3. Replace each letter with a unique integer from 0 – 9, so that the addition problem
” adds-up”.
Answer: 65682 + 981849 = 1047531