Hint
Start by imaging a sign saying 'BrainBashers Puzzles And Illusions'.
Answer
I commissioned an artist to paint a sign for BrainBashers that said 'BrainBashers Puzzles And Illusions', however, they made a terrible mistake.
The gaps between 'Puzzles' and 'And', and 'And' and 'Illusions' weren't the same, so the sign seemed oddly out of balance.
?
Puzzle 18
Last night, I was looking at a road sign and could see that Leeds was 13 miles away, Stoke was 13 miles away and Leek was 10 miles away.
Unfortunately, it was too dark to see how far it was to Manchester. Can you help me?
Hint
This is a tricky question related to number bases.
Answer
200.
Each number in the sequence is a representation of the number 32 in different bases, starting with base 10.
Base 10: 32 = 3 x 10^1 + 2 x 10^0 = 3 x 10 + 2 = 32
Base 9 : 35 = 3 x 9^1 + 5 x 9^0 = 3 x 9 + 5 = 32
Base 8 : 40 = 4 x 8^1 + 0 x 8^0 = 4 x 8 + 0 = 32
Base 7 : 44 = 4 x 7^1 + 4 x 7^0 = 4 x 7 + 4 = 32
Base 6 : 52 = 5 x 6^1 + 2 x 6^0 = 5 x 6 + 2 = 32
Base 5 : 112 = 1 x 5^2 + 1 x 5^1 + 2 x 5^0 = 1 x 25 + 1 x 5 + 2 = 32
Base 4 : 200 = 2 x 4^2 + 0 x 4^1 + 0 x 4^0 = 2 x 16 + 0 + 0 = 32
???
Puzzle 20
Find two words, which are anagrams of each other, which complete this sentence:
Due to a recent outbreak of a ? infection in the zebra house, the local animal sanctuary had to ? their electron microscope correctly, to ensure rapid detection.