Puzzle 17
How many squares, of any size, can you find on this chessboard that do not contain a rook?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
How many 2 x 2 squares are there?
Answer
128.
Reasoning
There are 62 squares of size 1 x 1.
There are 41 squares of size 2 x 2.
There are 18 squares of size 3 x 3.
There are 6 squares of size 4 x 4.
There is 1 square of size 5 x 5.
A total of 62 + 41 + 18 + 6 + 1 = 128.
Puzzle 18
I recently travelled from my home town to a distant music concert, on a pedal tricycle, of all things! My wonderful, three-wheeled tricycle.
I knew that the epic 2,345 mile trip would wreak havoc on the tyres, but luckily I took along 4 spares!
Instead of waiting for any single tyre to fail, I decided that I would rotate the tyres evenly, making sure that by the end of the trip, all seven tyres had travelled exactly the same distance.
What was the distance that each tyre travelled?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
How many tyre miles were travelled?
Answer
1,005 miles.
Reasoning
A total of 2,345 miles were travelled and at any one time, three tyres were on the tricycle.
Therefore, 3 x 2,345 = 7,035 tyre miles were travelled, which was shared equally by the 7 tyres.
And 7,035 ÷ 7 = 1,005.
Puzzle 19
Can you find a number such that...
...its double is fourteen more than its quarter?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
The number is less than 20.
Answer
8.
Reasoning
We need a number (N) such that:
2 x N = 14 + N
—
4
Multiply throughout by 4 to give:
8 x N = 56 + N
So:
7 x N = 56
So N = 8.
Double-Checking
Its double is 16.
Its quarter is 2.
So its double is fourteen more than its quarter.
Puzzle 20
I am compiling the new BrainBashers world almanac, and it now contains lots more pages.
I know that it takes 333 digits to print the page numbers in sequence.
How many numbered pages does the book have?
How many times does the number 3 appear?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
Think of the pages from 1-9, and then 10-99.
Answers
There are 147 pages.
The number 3 appears 35 times.
Answer #1
For pages 1-9, there are 9 pages, which is 9 digits.
For pages 10-99, there are 90 pages, which is 180 digits.
This is a total so far of 189, therefore we require another 333 – 189 = 144 digits, which is another 144 ÷ 3 = 48 pages.
Taking us to 9 + 90 + 48 = 147 pages in total.
Answer #2
From page 1 to 147 we have 15 pages that end in 3:
3, 13, 23, ..., 143
We also have the ten pages that start with 30:
30, 31, 32, ..., 39
Plus the ten pages that start with 130:
130, 131, 132, ..., 139
For a total of 15 + 10 + 10 = 35 number 3's.
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