PROBLEM OF THE WEEK

Ben walked into a hardware store and asked the price of some items. The salesman said: One costs $1, Eight costs $1, Seventeen cost $2, One hundred four costs $3 and One thousand seventy two costs $4. What was Ben buying?

Lily is a lillypad in a small pond. Lilly doubles her size each day, On the 20th day she cover the whole pond. On what day was Lily half the size of the pond?

Find four numbers, the sum of which is 45, so that if 2 is added to the first number, 2 is subtracted from the second number, the third number is multiplied by 2 and the fourth number is divided by 2, then the four numbers so produced are all the same. What are the four numbers?

A car's odometer shows 72927 miles, a palindromic number. What are the minimum miles you would need to travel to form another?

If eleven plus two equals one, what does nine plus five equal?

What has a foot on each side and one in the middle?

Two fathers and two sons went fishing one day. They were there the whole day and only caught 3 fish. One father said, that is enough for all of us, we will have one each. How can this be possible?

Given two 2s, "plus" can be changed to "times" without changing the results: 2 + 2= 2 x 2.

The solution with three numbers is easy too: 1 + 2 + 3= 1 x 2 x 3.

Now find the answer for 4 numbers and for 5 numbers.

You have 14 brown socks, 14 blue socks and 14 black socks in your sock drawer. How many socks must you remove (without looking to be sure) to have a matched pair?

I am a three digit number.
My tens digit is five more than my ones digit.
My hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit.
What number am I?