LITTON’S PROBLEMATICAL

PROBLEMS
PROBLEM 1 40 cents.” What was Dr. LaRouche
buying?
A man walks one mile south, one mile
west, then one mile north ending Ans: 10 cent/number
where he began. From how many
points on the surface of the earth can
such a journey be made? (There are PROBLEM 4
more than 1)
In a fast Major League baseball game,
Ans: Infinite pitcher Hi N. Outside managed to get
by with the minimum number of
pitches possible. He played the entire
PROBLEM 2 game, which was not called prior to
completion. How many pitches did he
Maynard’s Grandfather Clock is driven
make?
by two weights, one for the striking
mechanism which strikes the hours Ans: 25 pitches
only, the other for the time
mechanism. When he hears the clock
strike his bedtime, he immediately PROBLEM 5
winds the clock and retires. After
winding, the weighs are exactly A chemist has three large test tubes
opposite each other. The weighs are and a beaker with 54 c.c. of elixir.
again opposite every six hours Using the test tubes and ingenuity
thereafter. What is Maynard’s only, how can he retain 50 c.c. in the
bedtime? beaker?

Ans: 9 pm or 3 am Ans: 50

PROBLEM 3 PROBLEM 6

Dr. Fubisher LaRouche, the noted How many colors are necessary for the
mathematician, was shoping at a squares of a chessboard in order to
hardware store and asked the price of assure that a bishop cannot move
certain articles. The salesman replied. from one square to another of the
“One would cost 10 cents, eight would same color?
ost 10 cents, seventeen would cost 20 Ans: 8 colors
cents, one hundred and four would
cost 30 cents, seven hundred and fifty-
six would aslo cost 30 cents, and one
PROBLEM 7
thousand and seventy-two would cost
A neat computer programmer wears a PROBLEM 11
clean shirt every day. If he drops off In the game “subtract-a-square,” a
his laundry and piucks up the previous positive integer is written down and
week’s load every Monday night, how two players alternately subtract
many shirts must he own to keep him squares from it with the restriction
going? that the remainder must never be less
than zero. The player who leaves zero
Ans: 15
wins. What square should the first
PROBLEM 8 player subtract if the original number
is 29?
Six boys on a hockey team pick a Ans: 9
captain by forming a circle and
counting out until only one remains.
Joe is given the option of deciding PROBLEM 12
what number to count by. If he is
Six grocers in a town each sell a
second in the original counting order
different brand of tea in four ounce
what number should he choose?
packets at 25 cents per packet. One of
Ans: 10 the grocers gives short weight, each
packet of his brand weighing only 3 ¾
ounces. If I can use a balance for only
PROBLEM 9 one weighing, what is the minimum
amount I must spend to be sure of
Four players played a hand of hearts finding the grocer who gives short
at $1 a point (pairwise payoffs). Dave weight?
lost $10 to Arch, $12 to Bob, and $20
to Chuck. How many hearts did poor Ans: 3.7 dollars
Dave take in?
Ans: 4 PROBLEM 13
Between Kroflite and Beeline are five
PROBLEM 10 other towns. The seven towns are an
integral number of miles from each
In a memorable game with the Podunk other along a staight road. The towns
Polecats, the Mudville Mets are so spaced that if one knows the
established a record. They received number of miles a person has traveled
the maximum number of walks between any two towns he can
possible in one inning in which one determine the particular towns
player (who happened to ne the uniquely. What is the minimum
Mighty Casey) was up three times and distance between Kroflite and Beeline
accounted for all three outs. How to make this possible?
many walks did Podunk allow in that
tedious half-inning? Ans: 25 miles

Ans: 30
PROBLEM 14
On a certain day, our parking lot A salesman visits ten cities arranged
contains 999 cars, no two of which in the form of a circle, spending a day
have the same 3-digit license number. in each. He proceeds clockwise from
After 5:00 p.m. what is the probability one city to the next, except whenever
that the license numbers of the first 4 leaving the tenth city. How many days
cars to leave the parking lot are in must elapse before his location is
increasing order of magnitude? completely indeterminate, i.e., when
Ans: 4! or 24 he could be in any one of the ten
cities?
Ans: 83
PROBLEM 15
PROBLEM 19
A hospital nursery contains only two
baby boys; the girls have not yet been All the members of a fraternity play
counted. At 2:00 p.m. a new baby is basketball while all but one play ice
added to the nursery. A baby is then hockey; yet the number of possible
selected at random to be the first to basketball teams (5 members) is the
have its footprint taken. It turns out to same as the number of possible ice
be a boy. What is the probability that hockey teams (6 members). Assuming
the last addition to the nursery was a there are enough members to form
girl? either type of team, how many are in
the fraternity?
Ans: 2/5
Ans: 15
PROBLEM 20
PROBLEM 16
A game of super-dominoes is played
If two marbles are removed at random
with pieces divided into three cells
from a bag containing lack and white
instead of the usual two, containing all
marbles, the chance that they are
combinations from triple blank to triple
both white is 1/3. If 3 are removed at
six, with no duplications. For example,
random, the chance that they all are
the set does not include both 1 2 3
white is 1/6. How many marbles are
and 3 2 1 since these are merely
there of each color?
reversals of each other. (But, it does
Ans: 6 white, 4 black contain 1 3 2.) How many pieces are
there in a set?
PROBLEM 17
Ans: 196
Rigorously speaking, two men are
“brothers-in-law” if one is married to PROBLEM 21
the full sister of the other. How many
There are three families, each with two
men can there be with each man a
sons and two daughters. In how many
brother-in-law of every other man?
ways can all these young people be
Ans: 3 men married?

PROBLEM 18 Ans: 80
PROBLEM 22
How many three-digit telephone area presence of a “mated triple” with its
codes are possible given that: (a) the promise of more little batfish to come?
first digit must not be zero or one; (b)
Ans: 4
the second digit must be zero or one;
(c) the third digit must not be zero; (d)
the third digit may be one only if the
second digit is zero.
Ans: 136
PROBLEM 23 PROBLEM 26

Max and his wife Min each toss a pair Citizens of Franistan pay as much
of dice to determine where they will income tax (percentage-wise) as they
spend their vacation. If either of Mins make rupees per week. What is the
dice displays the same number of optimal salary in Franistan?
spots as iether of Max’s, she wins and Ans: 50 rupees
they go to Bermuda. Otherwise, they
go to Yellostone. What is the chance
they’ll see “ Old Faithful” this year?
PROBLEM 27
Ans: 0.514
In a carnival game, 12 white balls and
3 black balls are put in an opaque
bottle, shaken up, and drawn out one
PROBLEM 24 at a time. Thee plaer gets 25 cents for
There are four volumes of an each white ball which emerges before
encyclpedia on a shelf, each volume the first black ball. If he pays one
containing 300 pages, (that is, dollar to play, how much can be he
numbered 1 to 600), but these have expect to win )or lose) on each game?
been placed n the shelf in random Ans: Loss of 25 cents/game
order. A bookworm starts at the first
page of Vol. 1 and eats his way
through to the last page of Vol. 4.
PROBLEM 28
What is the expected number of pages
(excluding covers) he has eaten In the final seconds of the game, your
through? favorite N.B.A team is behind 117 to
118. Your center attemps a shot and is
Ans: 500
fouled for the 2nd time in the last 2
minutes as the buzzer sounds. Three
to make two in the penalty situation.
PROBLEM 25 Optimistic? Note: the center is only a
Venusian batfish come in three sexes, 50% free-thrower. What are your
which are indistinguishable (except by team’s overall chances of winning?
Venusian batfish). Hwo many live Ans: 69%
specimens must our astronauts bring
home in order for the odds to favor the
PROBLEM 29 PROBLEM 32
A sharp operator makes the following At this moment, the hands of a clock
deal. A player is to toss a coin and in the course of normal operation
receive 1, 4, 9, ….. n2 dollars if the describe a time somewhere between
first head comes up on the first, 4:00 and 5:00 on a standard clock
second, third,… n-th toss. The sucker face. Within one hour or less, the
pays ten dollars for this. How much hands will have exactly exchanged
can the operator expect to make if this positions; what time is it now?
repeated a great many times?
Ans: 4:26.853
Ans: $4 per game
PROBLEM 33
Two men are walking towards each
PROBLEM 30 other at the side of a railway. A freight
train overtakes one of them in 20
An expert on transformer design
seconds and exactly ten minutes later
relaxed one Saturday by going to the
meets the other man coming in the
races. At the end of the first race he
opposite direction. The train passes
had doubled his money. He bet $30 on
this man in 18 seconds. How long after
the second race and tripled his money.
the train has passed the second man
He bet $54 on the third race and
will the two men meet? (Constant
quadrupled his money. He bet $72 on
speeds are to be assumed
the fourth race and lost it, but still had
throughout.)
$48 left. With how much money did he
start? Ans: 5562
Ans: 29 PROBLEM 34
Two snails start from the same point in
opposite directions toward two bits of
PROBLEM 31
food. Each reaches his destination in
Dr. Reed, arriving late at the lab one one hour. If each snail had gone in
morning, pulled out his watch and the direction the other took, the first snail
hour hand are exactly together every would have reached his food 35
sixty-five minutes.” Does Dr. Reed’s minutes after the second. How do their
watch gain or lose, and how much per speeds compare?
hour?
Ans: V1 = 3/4V2
Ans: Gains 60/143 minutes
 percentage is he exceeding the speed
limit?
Ans: 25%

PROBLEM 35
PROBLEM 38
A necklace consists of pearls which
increase uniformly from a weight of 1 The teacher marked the quiz on the
carat for the end pearls to a weight of following basis: one point for each
100 carats for the middle pearl. If the correct answer, one point off for each
necklace weighs altogether 1650 question left blank and two points off
carats and the clasp and string for each question answered
together weigh as much (in carats) as incorrectly. Pat made four times as
the total number of pearls, how many many errors as Mike, but Mike left nine
pearls does the necklace contain? more questions blank. If they both got
the same score, how many errors did
Ans: 33 pearls
each make?
Ans: Pat = 8 errors, Mike = 2 errors
PROBLEM 36
A pupil wrote on the blackboard a
PROBLEM 39
series of fractions having positive
integral terms and connected by signs A forgetful physicist forgot his watch
which were either all + or all x, one day and asked an E.E. on the staff
although they were so carelessly what time it was. The E.E. looked at
written it was impossible to tell which his watch and said: “The hour, minute,
they were. It still wasn’t clear even and sweep second hands are as close
though he announced the result of the to trisecting the face as they ever
operation at every step. The third come. This happens only twice in
fraction had denominator 19. What every 12 hours, but since you probably
was the numerator? haven’t forgotten whether you ate
lunch, you should be able to calculate
Ans: Numerator = 25
the time.” What time was it to the
nearest second?

PROBLEM 37 Ans: 2:54:35 and 9:05:25

Mr. Field,, a speeder, travels on a busy

highway having the same rate of
PROBLEM 40
traffic flow in each direction. Except
for Mr. Field, the traffic is moving at A spider and a fly are located at
the legal speed limit. Mr. Field passes opposite vertices of a room of
one car for every nine which he meets dimensions 1, 2 and 3 units. Assuming
from the opposite direction. By what that the fly is too terrified to move,
find the minimum distance the spider
must crawl to reach the fly.
Ans: 18

PROBLEM 41
PROBLEM 44
A circle of radius 1 inch is inscribed in
Three farmers, Adams, Brown and
an equilateral triangle. A smaller circle
Clark all have farms containing the
is inscribed at each vertex, tangent to
same number of acres. Adams’ farm is
the circle and two sides of the triangle.
most nearly square, the length being
The process is continued with
only 8 miles longer than the width.
progressively smaller circles. What is
Clark has the most oblong farm, the
the sum of the circumference of all
length being 34 miles longer than the
circles?
width. Brown’s farm is intermediate
Ans: 5π between these two, the length being
28 miles longer than the width. If all
the dimensions are in exact miles,
PROBLEM 42 what is the size of each farm?

A student beginning the study of Ans: Adam = 40 x 48, Brown = 32 x

Trigonometry came across an 60, Clark = 30 x 64
expression of the form sin (X + Y). He
evaluated this as sin X + sin Y.
Surprisingly he was correct. The PROBLEM 45
values of X and Y differed by 10˚; what
1960 and 1961 were bad years for ice
were these values, assuming that 0˚ <
cream sales but 1962 was very good.
X < Y < 360˚?
An accountant was looking at the
Ans: x = 175˚, y = 185˚ tonnage sold in each year and noticed
that the digital sum of the tonnage
sold in 1962 was three times as much
PROBLEM 43 as the digital sum of the tonnage sold
in 1961. Moreover, if the amount sold
Dad and his son have the same in 1960 (346 tons), was added to the
birthday. One the last one, Dad was 1961 tonnage, this total was less than
twice as old as Junior. Uncle observed the total tonnage sold in 1962 by the
that this was the ninth occasion on digital sum of the tonnage sold in that
which Dad’s birthday age has been an same year. Just how many more tons
integer multiple of Junior’s. How old is of ice cream were sold in 1962 than in
Junior? the previous year?
Ans: Junior = 36 years old, Dad = 72 Ans: 361 tons
years old
 number as a result, but was 14.6 off.
What was the original number?
Ans: 5.4 = 20

PROBLEM 46
PROBLEM 49
Two wheels in the same plane are
mounted on shafts 13 in. apart. A belt A group of hippies are pondering
goes around both wheels to transmit whether to move to Patria, where
power from one to the other. The radii polygamy is practiced but polyandry
of the two wheels and the length of and spinsterhood are prohibited, or
the belt not in contact with the wheels Matria, where polyandry is permitted
at any moment are all integers. How and polygamy and bachelorhood are
much larger is one wheel than the proscribed. In either event the possible
other? number of “arrangements” is the
same. The girls outnumber the boys.
Ans: 5 inches larger
How many are there?
Ans: 4 girls, 2 boys
PROBLEM 47
Three rectangles of integer sides have
PROBLEM 50
identical areas. The first rectangle is
278 feet longer than wide. The second A man leaves from the point where the
rectangle is 96 feet longer than wide. prime meridian crosses the equator
The third rectangle is 542 feet longer and moves forty-five degrees
than wide. Find the area and northeast by geographic compass
dimensions of the rectangels. which always points toward the north
geographic pole. He constantly
Ans: Area is 1,466,690 square feet
corrects his route. Assuming that he
Rectangular dimensions are: 1080 x walks with equal facility on land and
1358; 1164 x 1260; 970 x 1512 feet sea, where does he end up and how
far will he have traveled when he gets
PROBLEM 48 there?
In European countries the decimal Ans: North Pole, meters sqrt 2 x 10^7
point is often written a little above the
line. An American, seeing a number
written this way, with one digit on
PROBLEM 51
each side of the decimal point,
assumed the numbers were to be Three hares are standing in a
multiplied. He obtained a two-digit triangular field which is exactly 100
yards on each side. One hare stands at
each corner; and simultaneously all right corner, thus making two slanting
three set off running. Each hare runs parallel lines. The paper was 25 inches
after the hare in the adjacent corner long and the distance between the
on his left, thus following a curved parallel lines was exactly 7/40 of the
course which terminates in the middle width. How wide was the sheet of
of the field, all three hares arrriving paper?
there together. The hares obviously
Ans: 24 inches
ran at the same speed, but just how
far did they run?
Ans: 100 yards
PROBLEM 52 PROBLEM 55
A one-acre field in the shape of a right The Ben Azouli are camped at an oasis
triangle has a post at the midpoint of 45 miles west of Taqaba. They decided
each side. A sheep is tethered to each to dynamite the Trans-Hadramaut
of the side posts and a goat to the railroad joining Taqaba to Maqaba, 60
post on the hypotenuse. The ropes are miles north of the oasis. If the Azouli
just long enough to let each animal can cover 18 miles a day, how long
reach the two adjacent vertices. What will it take them to reach the railroad?
is the total area the two sheep have to
themselves, i.e., the area the goat Ans: 2 days
cannot reach?
Ans: one acre PROBLEM 56
A rectangular picture, each of whose
PROBLEM 53 dimensions is an integral number of
inches, has an ordinary rectangular
A cowboy is five miles south of a frame 1 inch wide. Find the
stream which flows due east. He is dimensions of the picture if the area of
also 8 miles west and 6 miles north of the picture and the area of the frame
his cabin. He wishes to water his horse are equal.
at the stream and return home. What
is the shortest distance he can travel Ans: 3 x 10 or 4 x 6
and accomplish this?
Ans: 17.9 miles PROBLEM 57
A diaper is in the shape of a triangle
PROBLEM 54 with sides 24, 20 and 20 inches. The
long side is wrapped around the
An Origami expert started making a baby’s waist and overlapped two
Nani-des-ka by folding the top left inches. The third point is brought up to
corner of a sheet of paper until it the center of the overlap and pinned
touched the right edge and the crease in place. The pin is to go through three
passed through the bottom left corner. thicknesses of material. What is the
He then did the same with the lower area in which the pin may be placed?
Ans: 2.5 in^2 PROBLEM 60
Find the smallest number (x) of
persons a boat may carry so that (n)
married couples may cross a river in
such a way that no woman ever
remains in the company of any man
unless her husband is present. Also
find the least number of passages (y)
needed from one bank to the other.
PROBLEM 58 Assume that the boat can be rowed by
one person only.
A certain magic square contains nine
consecutive 2-digit numbers. The sum Ans: number of persons x = 2, number
of the numbers in any line is equal to of passages y = 5
one of the numbers in the square with
the digits reversed. This is still the
case if 7 is added to each entry. What PROBLEM 61
is the number in the center square?
The undergraduate of a School of
Ans: 17 Engineering wished to form ranks for a
parade. In ranks of 3 abreasts, 2 m2n
were left over; in ranks of 5, 4 over; in
PROBLEM 59 7’s, 6 over; and 11’s, 10 over. What is
the least number of marchers there
Maynard the Census Taker visited a
must have been?
house and was told, “Three people live
there. The product of their ages is Ans: 1154
1296, and the sum of their ages is our
house number.” After an hour of
cogitation Maynard returned for more PROBLEM 62
information. The house owner said, “I
forgot to tell you that my son and The sum of the digits on the odometer
grandson live here with me.” How old in my car (which reads up to 99999.9
were the occupants and what was miles) has never been higher than it is
their street number? now, but it was the same 900 miles
ago. How many miles must I drive
Ans: age of occupants = 1 and 18, before it is higher than it is now?
street number = 72
Ans: 100
PROBLEM 60
In Byzantine basketball there are 35
scores which are impossible for a team PROBLEM 63
to total, one of them being 58.
My house is on a road where the
Naturally a free throw is worth fewer
numbers run 1, 2, 3, 4… consecutively.
points than a field goal. What is the
My number is a three digit one and, by
point value of each?
a curious coincidence, the sum of all
Ans: free throw = 8, field goal = 11 house numbers less than mine is the
same as the sum of all house numbers
greater than mine. What is my number
and how many houses are there on my
road?
Ans: house number = 204, no. of
houses = 208

PROBLEM 64
In a lottery the total prize money
available was a million dollars, paid
out in prizes which were powers of $11
viz., $1, $11, $121, etc. Noe more than
6 people received the same prize. How
many prize winners were there, and
how was the money distributed?
Ans: 20 winners
PROBLEM 65
The Sultan arranged his wives in order
of increasing seniority and presented
each with a golden ring. Next, every
3rd wide, starting with the 2nd, was
given a 2nd ring; of these every 3rd
one starting with the 2nd received a
3rd ring, etc. His first and most
cherished wife was the only one to
receive 10 rings. How many wives had
the Sultan?
Ans: 9842 wives