Can You Solve My Puzzles?

Without using Google

I love puzzles. Not the easy ones — that type is boring. I’m talking about the ones which give you, forgive my french, brain-fuck (not the programming language, you nerd).

Over the last five months, I asked many of my work-teams and friends and family to solve two specific puzzles. One of these always went unsolved.

Can you, my fellow Medium-ers, solve both, without using Google?

If you love potatoes, you have a better chance of solving the first one. Well, maybe not.

The Shrivelled Spuds

Once upon a time, there were a few potatoes. My bad, that's now how the puzzle goes. Actual puzzle is as follows. 

A pile of potatoes weighing hundred kg is put in the sun. Ninety-nine per cent of the weight of the potatoes is made up of water. 

After a day, some of the water evaporates, with the result that ninety-eight percent of the weight is now made up of water. 

What's the new weight of the potatoes?

I can see you shaking your head.

Are you asking your partners, friends, or people around you to assist you in solving this?

Did you share this with someone, who you think are good at solving puzzles?

Or you have used Google already to find the answer?

If you’ve seen this puzzle for the first time, I don’t think you will solve this quickly. I’m happy to be proved wrong.

So, I’ll reduce your pain, let me give you another one so that you don’t have to, temporarily think about the bloody potatoes, and move on to the next one. For now.

The Green Room With Yellow Seats

There is a room. It is painted green. All the seats in the room are yellow. It can accomodate 100 people but can't fit any person who is taller than 7 feet.

On Tuesday, a company hosts its annual event in that room. 69 Females, 30 Males, and 1 Teenager are attending. The teenager is 7 feet tall.

A certain number of men and women leave after 3 hours, with the result that the teenager goes from making up one per cent of the people in the room to making up two per cent. 

How many people remain in the room? And, how many have left?

Could you solve this?

Was this easier than the previous one?

You think you’ve got the answer?

Okay, if you’ve solved the second one, try redoing the potatoes puzzle.

Specially for my friends: Dr Ron Pol, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Tom Byers, 🌲Andrea D'Angelo🌲, Ali Kayaspor (the Maths guru :)), Shin Jie Yong, Michael Ritoch, Chris Hedges, George J. Ziogas.

These puzzles are taken from “Can You Solve My Problems? A Casebook of Ingenious, Perplexing and Totally Satisfying Puzzles” by Alex Bellos. I could not solve more than 6 puzzles out of 125 mentioned in the book.

Dear readers, let me know how it went. If you’ve already seen or solved these before, I request you not to share the answer in the comments section.

With puzzles and Coffee, Salam