Puzzle 1
Gardener's Spring Fayre - Logic Puzzles
At the recent spring fayre, four keen gardeners were displaying their fine roses.
In total there were four colours and each rose colour appeared twice.
From the clues below, can you tell who had which colour roses?
Gardener Green had a yellow rose.
Gardener Yellow did not have a red one.
Gardener Red had a blue rose, but not a green one.
Gardener Blue did not have a yellow one.
One person with a red rose also had a green one.
One person with a yellow rose also had a blue one.
One of the persons with a green rose had no red.
Neither of the persons with a yellow rose had a green one.
No person had two roses of the same colour.
No two persons had the same two colour roses, and their names provide no clues.
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
Start with a grid with all of the colours each gardener could have for each flower, and then eliminate some based on the clues given.
Answer
Name
Rose1
Rose2
Gardener Blue
red
green
Gardener Green
yellow
red
Gardener Red
blue
yellow
Gardener Yellow
blue
green
Reasoning
We can create a grid of the possible flowers each person could have. Initially, they each have the possibility of BGRY (blue, green, red, yellow) and as we work our way through the clues we can eliminate certain options.
Person F1 F2
Blue BGRY BGRY
Green BGRY BGRY
Red BGRY BGRY
Yellow BGRY BGRY
From (1), (2), (3) and (4) we can reduce the options to:
Blue BGR BGR
Green Y BGRY
Red B BRY
Yellow BGY BGY
By (9) this becomes:
Blue BGR BGR
Green Y BGR
Red B RY
Yellow BGY BGY
By (8) we get:
Blue BGR BGR
Green Y BR
Red B RY
Yellow BGY BGY
Only Blue can satisfy (5), and Yellow is the only person who can have the other G.
Blue R G
Green Y BR
Red B RY
Yellow G BY
By (8), Yellow can't be Y.
Blue R G
Green Y BR
Red B RY
Yellow G B
Since there are only two of each colour, we can reduce further:
Blue R G
Green Y R
Red B Y
Yellow G B
Puzzle 2
Below, 10 nine-letter words have been broken into chunks of three letters.
The chunks have been moved around, no chunk is used twice, and all of the chunks are used.
Can you determine what the 10 words are?
hol rec ant imp fer con
man dif ice pol acq htn
ort myt new air sag duc
dec lig kch ogy ing tan
uit ent gle tal tor ent
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
The first letters of the words are: A, C, D, D, I, L, M, N, P, R.
Answers
acq + uit + tal = acquittal
con + duc + tor = conductor
dec + kch + air = deckchair
dif + fer + ent = different
imp + ort + ant = important
lig + htn + ing = lightning
myt + hol + ogy = mythology
new + sag + ent = newsagent
pol + ice + man = policeman
rec + tan + gle = rectangle
Puzzle 3
A large freshwater reservoir has two types of drainage system. Small pipes and large pipes.
6 large pipes, on their own, can drain the reservoir in 12 hours.
6 small pipes, on their own, can drain the reservoir in 18 hours.
How long will 6 large pipes and 6 small pipes take to drain the reservoir?
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
How many reservoirs can each drain in 36 hours?
Answer
7 hours and 12 minutes.
Reasoning
We can use a time that 12 hours and 18 hours both fit in to, in 36 hours:
6 large pipes can drain 3 reservoirs.
6 small pipes can drain 2 reservoirs.
Therefore, together, 6 large and 6 small pipes can drain 5 reservoirs.
36 hours ÷ 5 = 7.2 hours for one reservoir.
7.2 hours = 7 hours and 12 minutes for one reservoir.
Puzzle 4
What comes next in this sequence:
iron bromine uranium argon {?}
Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone
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Hint
The chemical symbol for iron is Fe.
Answer
Yttrium.
The element's symbols are spelling February:
iron (Fe) + bromine (Br) + uranium (U) + argon (Ar) + yttrium (Y)
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