Puzzle

A family member sent me a puzzle the other day. It had apparently appeared on tv in a quiz and was worth close to £100,000.

I did not see the show, and here is my version of the question:

there are 100 people in a room. 99% are left handed. How many left handed people need to leave the room to bring the percentage down to 98%?

There are plenty of people doing this on-line, including this:

It’s fine to do it by algebra, but you couldn’t and wouldn’t use this method on tv in a timed quiz for a huge sum of money. But we know why he has posted this – the arithmetic is really interesting.

Have a go yourself, then look at the next page.

Puzzlers

I just wanted to mention a couple of people who make puzzle videos that I often enjoy. I don’t mean jigsaw puzzles, or paper puzzles like sudoku, but actual physical puzzles made of wood or metal.

One is Canadian magician Chris Ramsay. He has done videos showing tricks, but mostly seems to concentrate on the puzzles. He has big production values, tackles all his problems in a “what the f*** is going on here” attitude, does not always succeed but is hugely entertaining.

Here is one of his: