The U.S. Open is upon us! Dave Moran and Erich Friedman each submitted a tennis-themed puzzle that asked what it really takes to succeed in the tournament. Suppose you’re playing a match at the U.S. Open, and you’re slightly better than the competition: your chances of winning any given point are exactly 55 percent. (Yes, …
From Benni Trachtenberg, it’s time to dust off your football manager’s blazer just in time for the women’s World Cup: A soccer coach is assembling a team of 11 players to compete in the Riddler League. (For the sake of this problem, all players are invincible and will play the entirety of every game of …
At a pivotal moment in an epic battle between the living and the dead, the Night King, head of the army of the dead, raises all the fallen (formerly) living soldiers to join his ranks. This ability obviously presents a huge military advantage, but how big an advantage exactly? Forget the Battle of Winterfell and …
From Tom Hanrahan, three colorful journeys: In grade school, you may have learned about the three primary colors — blue, yellow and red — and the three secondary colors — green (blue + yellow), purple (red + blue) and orange (yellow + red). And now it’s time to put that knowledge to use. Try to …
Original text: Five brothers join the Riddler Baseball Independent Society, or RBIs. Each of them enjoys a lengthy career of 20 seasons, with 160 games per season and four plate appearances per game. (To make this simple, assume each plate appearance results in a hit or an out, so there are no sac flies or …
Original Question: Assume you have a sport (let’s call it “baseball”) in which each team plays 162 games in a season. Assume you have a division of five teams (call it the “AL East”) where each team is of exact equal ability. Specifically, each team has a 50 percent chance of winning each game. What is …
Original Question: Count Von Count, the counting count on “Sesame Street,” counts aloud on Twitter. If he counts up by one with each tweet — “One!” “Two!” “Three!” … “Five hundred thirty eight!” etc. — how high can he go before hitting the 140-character limit? Note: The count is enthusiastic and must end all of his …