Wes Carroll's Puzzler

Wes Carroll
  • 4.5 (2)
  • EDUCATION FOR KIDS
  • UPDATED MONTHLY
Wes Carroll's Puzzler

Easy to visualize but challenging to solve: that's the kind of math puzzle you get here, one per episode. (Do you love the Car Talk Puzzler too? Yeah, that's what I'm trying for here, only with even more of a math bent.)

  1. 12/25/2016

    24: Santa's big sleigh [****]

    A parking lot has 16 spaces in a row. Twelve cars arrive, each of which requires one parking space, and their drivers choose their spaces at random from among the available spaces. Santa Claus then arrives in his oversized and very full sleigh, which requires two adjacent spaces. What is the probability that there’s a place for him? // Spiciness: **** out of ****

    4 min

  2. 11/06/2016

    23: Your prime choice [***]

    What’s the largest 2-digit prime factor of “200 choose 100”? // Spiciness: *** out of ****

    5 min

  3. 10/02/2016

    22: Split the check [*]

    Last week, two of my friends and I went to a restaurant and had a lovely meal. We decided to evenly split the check, so we asked the waiter to just combine the totals. However, when the waiter came with the check, he revealed that there had been a mistake and instead of recording the complete total, the computer only returned a list of the totals of each pair of people. // Spiciness: * out of ****

    3 min

  4. 09/04/2016

    21: The faulty odometer [***]

    A faulty car odometer proceeds from digit 3 to digit 5, always skipping the digit 4, regardless of position. For example, after traveling one mile the odometer changed from 000039 to 000050. If the odometer now reads 001729, how many miles has the car actually traveled? // Spiciness: *** out of ****

    3 min

  5. 08/28/2016

    20: The middle digit [**]

    How many three-digit numbers satisfy the property that the middle digit is the average of the first and the last digits? // Spiciness: ** out of ****

    3 min

  6. 08/14/2016

    19: The token tax [**]

    A game is played with tokens according to the following rule. In each round, the player with the most tokens gives one token to each of the other players and also places one token into a discard pile. The game ends when some player runs out of tokens. Players A, B, and C start with 15, 14, and 13 tokens, respectively. // How many rounds will there be in the game? // Spiciness: ** out of ****

    3 min

  7. 07/31/2016

    18: The circular track [***]

    Brenda and Sally run in opposite directions on a circular track, starting at diametrically opposite points. They first meet after Brenda has run 100 meters. They next meet after Sally has run 150 meters past their first meeting point. Each girl runs at a constant speed. // What is the length of the track in meters? // (Also, a challenge for all listeners.) // Spiciness: *** out of ****

    7 min

  8. 07/24/2016

    17: The red one [***]

    My perpetually tricky friend told me that while she was walking through town she saw four particularly vibrant houses. There was an auburn one, a brick one, a cherry one, and one the shade of dogwood rose. She wanted me to figure out the order of the houses. She said that the the auburn came before the the brick one while the cherry one came before the dogwood rose, but the cherry and the dogwood rose were not adjacent. I told her that she hadn’t given me enough information, so she just laugh...

    4 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Easy to visualize but challenging to solve: that's the kind of math puzzle you get here, one per episode. (Do you love the Car Talk Puzzler too? Yeah, that's what I'm trying for here, only with even more of a math bent.)

Information

  • Creator
    Wes Carroll
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Wes Carroll's Puzzler
  • Show Website
    Wes Carroll's Puzzler

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