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Riddle:
'Tis found in our troubles, 'tis mixed with our pleasures, 'Tis laid up above with our heavenly treasures; 'Tis whispered in heaven, and 'tis muttered in hell, And it findeth a place in each sybilline spell; In Paradise nestled, 'mid Eden's fair flowers, It has sported with Eve in rose-perfumed bowers; 'Tis muttered in curses, yet breathed in our prayers; From the path of our duty it tempts us in snares. Deep, deep in our hearts you will find it engraved; Though in misery sunk, yet from sin it is saved. 'Tis found in the stream that flows on to the ocean; Though in bustle forever, 'tis ne'er in commotion. 'Tis wafted afar o'er the land in each breath; In the grave 'tis decaying-you'll find it in death. It is floating away on the broad stream of time, Yet it findeth a place in eternity's clime. In the legends of nations it holdeth a place; There's no charm without it to the beautiful face. In thunder you'll hear it, if closely you listen; In moonbeam and sunbeam forever 'twill glisten. In the dew-drop it sparkles; 'tis found in the forest; It whispers in peace when our need is the sorest. What am I?
Riddle:
My first may be fashioned of iron or wood, And at window or door for safety is placed; In village or town, it does more harm than good, Leading people their health, time, and money to waste. My second's a lady, bewitching and fair, And for love of her people will labor and strive; Will rise before dawn, and be wearied with care, And pursue her with ardor as long as they live. My whole is what ladies admire and approve, The shopkeeper's boast-the purchaser's prize; 'Tis a ninepenny chintz-'tis a one-shilling glove- It is something which makes people open their eyes.
What am I?
Riddle:
I am not found on any ground, But always in the air; Though charged each cloud with thunder loud, You can not find me there. Now, if from France you choose to dance Your way just into Spain, I there am seen, and near the queen, In hail, in mist, and rain.
What am I?
Riddle:
George was cleaning the windows on the eighteenth floor of an office block when there was a massive power failure. The electric hoist on his platform was immoblized.
So how did he manage to get down before the power was restored?
Answer: George walked down the stairs. He was cleaning the inside of the windows.
Riddle:
I have 10 red socks and 10 blue socks in a drawer. How many socks must I take out to ensure that I have at least one matching pair? One how many to ensure I have at least a pair of red and a pair of blue?
Answer: Three for one pair, and twelve to ensure one pair of each color.
Riddle:
You're stranded in a rainforest, and you've eaten a poisonous mushroom. To save your life, you need an antidote excreted by a certain species of frog. Unfortunately, only the female frog produces the antidote. The male and female look identical, but the male frog has a distinctive croak. Derek Abbott shows how to use conditional probability to make sure you lick the right frog and get out alive. How do you get out alive?
Answer: If you chose to go to the clearing, you're right, but the hard part is correctly calculating your odds. There are two common incorrect ways of solving this problem. Wrong answer number one: Assuming there's a roughly equal number of males and females, the probability of any one frog being either sex is one in two, which is 0.5, or 50%. And since all frogs are independent of each other, the chance of any one of them being female should still be 50% each time you choose. This logic actually is correct for the tree stump, but not for the clearing. Wrong answer two: First, you saw two frogs in the clearing. Now you've learned that at least one of them is male, but what are the chances that both are? If the probability of each individual frog being male is 0.5, then multiplying the two together will give you 0.25, which is one in four, or 25%. So, you have a 75% chance of getting at least one female and receiving the antidote. So here's the right answer. Going for the clearing gives you a two in three chance of survival, or about 67%. If you're wondering how this could possibly be right, it's because of something called conditional probability. Let's see how it unfolds. When we first see the two frogs, there are several possible combinations of male and female. If we write out the full list, we have what mathematicians call the sample space, and as we can see, out of the four possible combinations, only one has two males. So why was the answer of 75% wrong? Because the croak gives us additional information. As soon as we know that one of the frogs is male, that tells us there can't be a pair of females, which means we can eliminate that possibility from the sample space, leaving us with three possible combinations. Of them, one still has two males, giving us our two in three, or 67% chance of getting a female. This is how conditional probability works. You start off with a large sample space that includes every possibility. But every additional piece of information allows you to eliminate possibilities, shrinking the sample space and increasing the probability of getting a particular combination. The point is that information affects probability. And conditional probability isn't just the stuff of abstract mathematical games. It pops up in the real world, as well. Computers and other devices use conditional probability to detect likely errors in the strings of 1's and 0's that all our data consists of. And in many of our own life decisions, we use information gained from past experience and our surroundings to narrow down our choices to the best options so that maybe next time, we can avoid eating that poisonous mushroom in the first place.
Riddle:
What is the missing half of each word pair?
1. Hot and
2. Lock and
3. Black and
4. Scream and
5. Body and
6. Left and
7. Bacon and
8. Cat and
9. Up and
10. Burgers and
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