Before you accuse me of clickbait, hear me out. If you scroll through the same corners of social media as I do, then you’re tired of seeing meme puzzle accounts that abuse the headline “Only 1% of people can solve it!” via some light teasers. Are we really supposed to believe that only one in 100 people can count the triangles in a picture? Or that “only GENIUS” remember basic arithmetic? The headlines are insulting. But it’s different when I do it.
This week’s puzzles come from a British game show called The 1% Club, in which participants compete for money by solving increasingly difficult brain teasers. The show ranks the puzzles based on real public polls, and each episode culminates in a challenge that only 1% of the population could solve. Two seasons have already aired, a third is in preparation, as is an upcoming American adaptation hosted by Patton Oswalt. I don’t get paid for these plugs; I’m just a fan of the series, and if you follow The Gizmodo Monday Puzzle, you’ll probably like it too.
I’ll give you some sample questions from the show to give you an idea of her style. I have placed the answers under the main puzzle. So don’t scroll if you want to solve these first.
Example 1 (35% question): What number do you get if you multiply all the numbers together on a telephone keypad?
Example 2 (15% question): Which animal is half goat and third cow?
Example 3 (10% question): Which one is unusual? TROJAN, BROKEN, CROSS-BOUND, CONCOCT, JUSTIFIED
Did you miss last week’s puzzle? Listen Here, and find the solution at the end of today’s article. Be careful not to read too far in advance if you haven’t solved last week’s problems yet!
Puzzle #40: 1% Questions
Bonus Challenge: Players in the show only have 30 seconds to solve each puzzle. So take a stopwatch with you if you want to simulate the real experience. I assume most people will need more time.
Question 1: What do the letters V and C stand for in the following order?
VCCCVCCCVCCCCCVCCCCCV CCCCC
Question 2: For a 24-hour digital clock (military time) that displays hours, minutes, and seconds, how often do all six digits change simultaneously in each 24-hour period?
Question 3:
Jamaica + Japan = 124
Argentina + Armenia = 1245
France + Brazil = 23
England + Germany = ?
I’ll be back next Monday with the answers to the 1% questions and a new puzzle. Do you know a cool puzzle that you think should be featured here? Write me a message on X @JackPMurtagh or send me an email at [email protected]
Answers to the sample questions below.
Example 1 (35% question): What number do you get if you multiply all the numbers together on a telephone keypad?
Zero. Remember that there are zeros on the telephone keypads!
Example 2 (15% question): Which animal is half goat and third cow?
Cat. The word “cat” is made up of half the letters of “goat” (“at”) and one-third of the letters of “cow” (“c”).
Example 3 (10% question): What is unusual? TROJAN, BROKEN, CROSS-BOUND, CONCOCT, JUSTIFIED
JUSTIFY is the weird thing. All others end with a month abbreviation (JAN, MAY, SEPT, OCT).
Solution to Puzzle No. 39: A self-referential number
Last weeks puzzle asked you to find a number that describes itself. Many thanks to Kelly for emailing in the correct answer to this question and the bonus puzzle.
Only a 10-digit number has the following property. The leftmost digit is the number of zeros in the number, the next digit is the number of ones in the number, the next is the number of twos and so on until the rightmost digit which is the number of nines in the number . Find the number.
The answer is 6210001000. It contains six zeros, two ones, a 2 and a 6. This is the largest self-referential number by our definition and the only 10-digit number. The full list is: 1210, 2020, 21200, 3211000, 42101000, 521001000.
Thanks to Enfy for pointing out that I didn’t have to specify that numbers can’t start with zero. The first digit of a self-referential number can never be zero, as this would create an immediate contradiction: it would mean that the number contained no zeros and yet we simply started with a zero.
The bonus puzzle was to find the only starting number for the look-and-say sequence that wouldn’t cause it to diverge to infinity. The answer is 22. The next number would describe 22 as “two 2s,” which would be just another 22, so the entire sequence would be 22, 22, 22, 22,…