Welcome to your daily brain workout! Today’s puzzle has been stumping people for over a thousand years — it appears in a medieval manuscript from the 9th century.
🧩 Today’s Puzzle: The Fox, Chicken, and Grain
A farmer needs to cross a river with a fox, a chicken, and a sack of grain. His boat can only carry himself and ONE item at a time. If left alone together, the fox will eat the chicken, and the chicken will eat the grain. (The fox won’t eat the grain.) How does the farmer get everything across safely?
💡 Hint
The key insight: the chicken is the only one that can be left with either the fox OR the grain. So the farmer needs to take the chicken first, then… what comes back with him?
📅 Yesterday’s Answer (June 23)
Puzzle: The Monty Hall Problem — Should you switch doors?
✅ Answer: YES, always switch. Switching gives you a 2/3 chance of winning; staying gives you 1/3. Here’s why: your initial pick has a 1/3 chance of being right. The host’s action reveals information — when you initially picked a goat (2/3 chance), the host MUST reveal the other goat, meaning the remaining door has the car. Switching wins whenever your initial guess was wrong (which happens 2/3 of the time).
Leave a ReplyCancel reply