I thought it would be a funny change of pace from all this quantum-physics and advanced binary math problems that are way above my head

but keep'm coming and I'll try to dig up something interesting :)

• Bust down reason? (9 letters)

I'm very skeptical about that because it depends so much on the questions. Look at this sentence, for example:

"China has built 57 new missile sites in the past 5 years"

The computer may be able to answer question a better than humans, but there's no way in hell it will understand question b:

a) How many new missile sites has China built in the past 5 years?

a) How many new missile sites has China built in the past 5 years? ...>

5 houses painted 5 different colors stand in a row. 1 person of a different nationality lives in each house. The 5 home owners all drink some type of beverage, smoke a certain cigar brand, and have a certain kind of pet. But none of the owners drink the same beverage, smoke the same type of cigar, or have the same pet.

Clues:

1. The Brit lives in the red house

2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets

3. The Dane drinks tea

4. The green house is on the immediate left of the white house

5. The green house's owner drinks coffee

6. The owner who smokes Pall Mall rears birds

7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill

8. The owner living in the center house drinks milk

9. The Norwegian lives in the first house

10. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats

11. The owner who keeps the horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.

12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer

13. The German smokes Prince.

14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

15. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who drinks water.

Question: Who owns the fish?

They have been archived, apparently.

I just found out that if you go to page 1, you can click on the option 'Archived Kibitzing' and voila, hundreds of more Louis Stumpers pages appear.

5 + (√15)i, 5 - (√15)i

Here's a classic to make up for it:

Albert and Bernard just met Cheryl. “When’s your birthday?” Albert asked Cheryl.

Cheryl thought a second and said, “I’m not going to tell you, but I’ll give you some clues.” She wrote down a list of 10 dates:

May 15 — May 16 — May 19

June 17 — June 18

July 14 — July 16

August 14 — August 15 — August 17

“My birthday is one of these,” she said.

Then Cheryl whispered in Albert’s ear the month — and only the month — of her birthday. To Bernard, she whispered the day, and only the day.

“Can you figure it out now?” she asked Albert.

Albert: I don’t know when your birthday is, but I know Bernard doesn’t know, either.

Bernard: I didn’t know originally, but now I do.

Albert: Well, now I know, too!

From Albert's first statement, the fact that he can deduce Bernard doesn't know means that it's either in July or August. If it was May, then there's a chance it could be May 19, in which case Bernard (being told "19") would instantly know. If it was June, the same would apply to June 18.

So now, Bernard (having heard Albert) knows it's in July or August too. The fact he didn't know originally means he was either told "14", "15", "16" or "17". But now he says he knows the exact day and month - which means it can't be July 14 or August 14, because if it were, him knowing it's in either July or August won't let him figure it out. Therefore, it's either July 16, August 15, or August 17. In any of these three dates, Bernard would indeed know the exact date at this point.

Finally, Albert says he now knows too. If he had been told "August", he still wouldn't know if it was August 15 or August 17 (because Bernard would have still been able to make the exact same statement). Hence, Albert must have been told "July".