Brain Teasers
Blackout
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
Jo was telling Mo about a blackout they had at school that day. She said, "It was the middle of science class and all of a sudden the lights went out. Some people got scared, but most people just started talking about the possibility of going home early. The principal's voice came over the loud speaker and told us not to panic, and that the electricity would come back in no time. After about 45 minutes, the lights came back on. The teacher immediately went back to her lesson about hot and cold water. She took some steaming hot tap water and freezing cold water and added some dye to them--"
Mo interrupted Jo. "Wait a minute! You're lying!"
How did she know?
Mo interrupted Jo. "Wait a minute! You're lying!"
How did she know?
Answer
The principal would not be able to use the loud speaker without electricity. Also, it would take a while for the water to become steaming hot.Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
The hot water could be heated by gas or oil hot water boilers.
The water kind of gave it away, but the lodspeaker part was good. Nice one.
Pretty easy got both clues. But nice one.
Why would the first kid want to lie about something like that anyway? (Good taeser for the most part)
Yeah i got the water part but not the speaker part... good one!
i didn't get the water part but i did get the speaker part!
Nice one.keep em comin!!
Great 1. I got it, but it was clever. Keep it up!
well given that i know a lot of places where there is perpetual hot water (places that use things like gas and boilers to heat water) i decided that that clue was a red herring. i did wonder how the principal was using the PA system without electricity though
it's also just occurred to me that the school could have a backup generator which allowed for "emergency" things to be operational, such as the loudspeaker, in which case the teaser doesn't really work (and yes, places do have backup alternate electricity sources for things they deem vital)
That was a cool teaser, and I got the answer right away. Nice job!
May 20, 2007
well actually there was a recent blackout at my school, and the loudspeaker was still operational. [but in that incident, we did get to go home early :-) ]. the water tipped me off though. good teaser, would work in most schools by the sound of things
we had a blackout at our school- the PA system worked and every other light was on in the hallway. and at our house, we get hot water if the lights are off.
I can understand the PA system, but for the hot water, a small gas stove or bunsen burner would heat the water without electricity.
What puzzles me most is why Jo should be lying about something like this. Perhaps there could be something in the story to make sense of this? It's a nice puzzle but I like the stories to be complete!
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