With thanks to the American Mathematical Society
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kindly provided by Simon Geard Two ladders, one 4m long the other 5m long, are placed against opposite walls of an alleyway and in opposite directions. If they cross at a height of 2m how far apart are the walls?
Kindly provided by UKMT A cube is inscribed in a sphere of diameter 1 metre. What is the surface area of the cube? In the grid below, each of the blank squares and the square marked X are to be filled by the mean of the two numbers in its adjacent squares. What number should go in the square marked X?  Kindly provided by Alex Bellos  Photograph: Whit Preston/Getty Images Three friends (A, B and C) are playing ping pong. They play the usual way: two play at a time, the winner stays on, and the loser waits his/her turn again. At the end of the day, they summarise the number of games that each of them played:
A played 10 B played 15 C played 17. Who lost the second game? Kindly provided by mycoted.com  Shown above are four men buried up to their necks in the ground.
They cannot move, so they can only look forward. Between A and B is a brick wall which cannot be seen through. They all know that between them they are wearing four hats--two black and two white--but they do not know what colour they are wearing. Each of them know where the other three men are buried. In order to avoid being shot, one of them must call out to the executioner the colour of their hat. If they get it wrong, everyone will be shot. They are not allowed to talk to each other and have 10 minutes to fathom it out. After one minute, one of them calls out. Question: Which one of them calls out? Why is he 100% certain of the colour of his hat?
The factorial on n, written n!, is defined by n! = 1 x 2 x 3 x ... x (n-2) x (n-1) x n. For how many positive integer values of k less than 50 is it possible to find a value of n such that n! ends in exactly k zeros? |
Puzzle Ideas
If you have an idea for puzzle of the month, then please do let me know. Archives
September 2017
Don't forget to check out 'Teach Further Maths' - PowerPoints for Teachers and Students of A-Level Further Maths 
...and the brilliant NEW educational card game 'Maths Trumps' 
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