IMPOSSIPUZZLES
1
“Come on, we all know your fishing stories,” Clem chuckled. “The good ones always get away, so we can’t see them.” John shook his head. “But it’s true, and the brute’s measurements were weird too. Just 132 centimetres long overall, its body was one and a half times as long as its tail, and head twice as long as the body.” Quite a fish! How long was its head?
2
“Your licence number?” said Greg. “1089 seems a very ordinary number except it’s a perfect square.” Jim smiled, shaking his head. “It’s not that,” he replied. “If you multiply it by a certain whole number you get the same licence number backwards. Multiply by 9 and you get 9801.” “That’s good,” his friend exclaimed. “D’you think any other 4-digit number works that way, even if not for 9 times?” Well?
3
“I saw you in the shop, but you were too busy choosing tiles to see me,” said Alan, “A job at home?” “It’s our back patio,” Bill replied. “You know it’s square, all square tiles. Now we want to enlarge it, so I was getting an additional forty-nine of the same size tiles that I’ll need.” How many tiles would that make altogether?
4
“The ages of your six kids are certainly special,” said John. “All spaced one year apart?” Susan smiled. “Is that what you mean?” “Something else,” her father replied. “If you add the oldest to the youngest you get the difference between your age and mine, and your age is the product of the three youngest divided by the sum of those three.” Susan shook her head. “I’ll take your word for it, and anyway you’re four times the age of the oldest,” she declared. How old was John?
5
Susan had collected all the money from the shattered jar. “We’ll have to start saving again,” she declared, handing her brother some coins. “I’ve kept exactly one third for myself. Here’s your share, and that leaves just 99p for Else and Eve to fight over.” Ken checked. “You’ve got 10p more than them,” he commented. “But you did clear up the mess.”
How much did he receive?
6
“D’you remember Janet’s new address?” Harry asked. “It’s Glen Drive, but what number?” “Well,” said Tony, “twice her number, added to its separate figures, makes 99.” What was Janet’s number?