Counting to the Letter “A”

The Problem:

An oppressive king in Romania asked his prophet
when he would die. The prophet was very wise
in many respects, but also concerned about his
own personal health and safety. What answer did
the prophet give to his King?

Answer:

The day you die will be the day after I die.

Today’s Problem

How far does one have to count to, before
using the letter “a” in spelling out the number?
For example, the number 1 is spelled “one”
which does not contain the letter “a”. The
number 2 is spelled two and also does not contain
the letter “a”.

The Prophecy

Last Problem:

How many 9’s do you encounter when you
start counting at 1 and count to 100?

Answer:

The answer is 20 => 9, 19, 29, 39, 49, 59,
69, 79, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97,
98, 99 (99 has 2 9’s in it).

Today’s Problem:

An oppressive king in Romania asked his prophet
when he would die. The prophet was very wise
in many respects, but also concerned about his
own personal health and safety. What answer did
the prophet give to his King?

Words Puzzle

Last Problem:

What is the next entry in this sequence?
S30 O31 N30

Answer:

D31. The letter is the first letter of a month
and the number represents how many days in the month.
The sequence begins in September with 30 days – S30.
D31 sands for December 31.

Today’s Problem:

What do the following words have in common?

position, view, fix, sent, serve, conceive, pay.

How Many Nines?

Yesterday’s Question:

You have 10 black and 10 white socks
tucked away in the top drawer of your dresser.
The room is totally dark and the electricity
is temporarily off due to an ice storm.
You would like to get a matching pair of socks.

How many socks will need to take out of the
drawer before you will be guaranteed to have a
matching pair of socks?

Answer:

The answer is 3. Once you pull out two socks
you will have one of three combinations:
* two black socks or
* two white socks or
* one black and one white sock.
The next sock you pull out of the drawer
will assure you of having a matching pair
of either white or black socks if you don’t
already have a matching pair.

Today’s Problem

How many 9’s do you encounter when you
start counting at 1 and count to 100?

Matching Socks

Last Question:

A grocery store sells products that are
priced in a certain way.

A daffodil costs 10 cents.
A carrot costs 8 cents.
A peach costs 5 cents.
A zucchini costs 9 cents.
An orange costs 6 cents.

How much does a plum cost?

Answer:

The answer is 4 cents. Each letter of the
food costs 1 cent, except for when the
name of the food has double letters, In this
case each of the double letters is worth
2 cents. For example, daffodil costs 10 cents
or: (d=1)+(a=1)+(f=2)+(f=2)+(o=1)+(d=1)
+(i=1)+(l=1)) = 10.

With no double letters, plum has four
letters worth one cent each. A plum thus
costs 4 cents.

Today’s Question:

You have 10 black and 10 white socks
tucked away in the top drawer of your dresser.
The room is totally dark and the electricity
is temporarily off due to an ice storm.
You would like to get a matching pair of socks.

How many socks will you need to take out of
your dresser drawer before you are guaranteed
to have a matching pair of socks?

How Much Does A Plum Cost?

Yesterday’s Problem:

Peggy likes oranges but not purple.
She likes torches but not chandeliers.
She eats berries but not fruit.

Using the same rule, does she like Byron
or Keats?

Answer:

The answer is “Byron.” She likes words
where the first two letters also make a
word. The word orange starts with “or”
which is a word. The word torches starts
with “to” which is a word. The word berries
starts with “be” which is a word.

Byron starts with “by” which of course
is also a word. “By” the way, are you
having fun?

Today’s Problem:

A grocery store sells products that are
priced in a certain way:

 

A daffodil costs 10 cents.
A carrot costs 8 cents.
A peach costs 5 cents.
A zucchini costs 9 cents.
An orange costs 6 cents.

How much does a plum cost?