The GTP "Mensa" Thread

  • Thread starter Mike Rotch
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Mike Rotch

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Well, with every "what is your IQ?" Thread vastly populated with people with above-average intelligence, how 'bout a Mensa question thread. Simple. I will pose a question that was once upon a time in a Mensa entrance test. The person who gets it right posts the next question, and so on. Time to see how accurate emode is ;)

A man orders a cup of coffee in a diner. When it arrives, it has a match in it. He calls the waiter over and complains about the match, then sends the cup of coffee back. The waiter returns with a new cup of coffee. The man sips it and yells that all they did was take the match out. How did he know?
 
I know sulfur makes it hard for cells to absorb sugar, so I am guessing that the coffee tasted like **** because the sugar would not dissolve in the water. It just sank to the bottom.

Thats my guess, I'm off to bed.
 
he must have put sugar in the coffee before he discovered the match. when the waitress returned the coffee and he tasted it and it still contained sugar letting him know it was the same cup :)
 
EASY ONE:

counting from zero what's the first number to contain the letter a?



where does the space come from?
puzzle03.gif



HARDEST ONE EVER!:
Kryptos is the name of a sculpture at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency that was dedicated in October 1990. The sculpture, which has 865 characters, was placed there as a whimsical challenge but has stumped and obsessed cryptographers around the world for nearly a decade.
Jim Sanborn, the artist who designed Kryptos, said he believes that the ultimate secret hidden in the text of Kryptos will never be deciphered. The actual cryptogram was designed by Edward M. Scheidt, a former chairman of the C.I.A.'s Cryptographic Center. Ed Scheidt, the retiring chairman of its Cryptographic Center, was hailed by then-director William Webster as "The Wizard of Codes." Scheidt figured that the first chunks of the puzzle would stand a few years; the last part, perhaps ten. He didn't know his own strength.
So far only a small handful of people have been able to decipher portions of the code. The fourth and final piece has been attempted by both the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency with no luck. To this day it remains unsolved. Do you think you have what it takes to decipher the world's hardest cryptogram?

puzzle02.gif

Solution: Three parts of Kryptos have been decrypted so far. Note: The word "iqlusion" in part one is not a transcription mistake. This is how it is actually encoded in Kryptos.
* Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.
* It was totally invisible.
How's that possible? They used the earth's magnetic field. x The information was gathered and transmitted undergruund to an unknown location. x Does Langley know about this? They should: it's buried out there somewhere. x Who knows the exact location? Only WW. This was his last message. x Thirty-eight degrees fifty-seven minutes six point five seconds north, seventy-seven degrees eight minutes forty-four seconds west. ID by rows.
* Slowly, desparatly slowly, the remains of passage debris that encumbered the lower part of the doorway was removed.
With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner. And then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in. The hot air escaping from the chamber caused the flame to flicker, but presently details of the room within emerged from the mist. x Can you see anything?

solve the 4th part and you are a true genious!
 
Easy one, part a). First number with 'a' is a hundred and one or one thousand

I assume you have answers to at least two of the three questions you posed?
 
Originally posted by Mike Rotch
Easy one, part a). First number with 'a' is a hundred and one or one thousand

I assume you have answers to at least two of the three questions you posed?

the dont coun't the a in a hundred since technically it's "one hundred" or the a in and since and is not a number. but hte answer is one thousand. Yes I know the second, I'm also working the 3rd. :)
 
OK from what i found on the internet the kryptos is solved like this: there is a keyword (green) that provides a key for the rest of the puzzle, the word kryptos (red) always follows the letter Z to fill in the remaining gaps, if there are still spaces left you resume the ABC (blue) thing. NOTE: the ABC's (blue) do not contain the letters K,R,Y,P,T,O, or S. If the keyword (green) contains a letter in the word kryptos you continue on with the rest of the word kryptos, for example if the keyword had a Y, you would continue with PTOS. After finding the key word this is how you solve the puzzle:


To use the table, first examine the key (palimpsest)._ It has ten letters._ This represents the period of the encoding, that is, the encoding repeats every ten letters._ So, we write down ten letter blocks of the message and begin._ Look for the first letter in line number one of the table._ It's corresponding message letter can be found in row zero._ The second letter can be found by looking in row 2, and so on.

once you find the keyworkd the rest is cake :) however no one can figure out the key word for the 4th and final part....

as of January 2004, remains unsolved:
?OBKR
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR

this key solves this part :Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.
 

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other key

It was totally invisible_ Hows that_ possible?_ They used the Earths magnetic field X_The information was gathered and transmitted undergruund to an unknown location X Does Langley know about this?_ They should Its buried out there somewhere X
Who knows the exact location?_ Only WW_ This was his last message X Thirty eight degrees fifty seven minutes six point five seconds north_Seventy seven degrees eight minutes forty four seconds west_ ID by rows.

doesn't make sense at all but then again it was designed to be solved by the CIA. :rolleyes:

I'd find the key to the third known part by woorking backwards but it's 1:43 AM and I'm pooped.
 

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I love this stuff. I wish i could remember a cipher that was done like a hundred years ago. It was on a tv show recently that I saw. It also has a word as a "key" that unlocked the alphabet needed to decode the message.

Grr. Wish I could remember what it is called :banghead:
 
Well, it's no big deal. those big (including all 4 pieces) triangles are not triangles and when you move the pieces around the imaginary (black) "hypotenusa" shows where it's area is increasing.
 
im a bi late but an alternative answer to the coffee thing is that the waiter took the matchout and placed it in the saucer, never discarding really it.
 
Originally posted by GTJugend
Well, it's no big deal. those big (including all 4 pieces) triangles are not triangles and when you move the pieces around the imaginary (black) "hypotenusa" shows where it's area is increasing.

yep :)
 
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