In a bouquet of flowers, all but two are roses, all but two are tulips, and all but

two are daisies. How

many flowers are in the bouquet?

There are 3 flowers (1 rose, 1 tulip, and 1 daisy).

You have two lengths of rope. Each rope has the property that if you light it on fire at one end, it
will take exactly 60 minutes to burn to the other end. Note that the ropes will not burn at a
consistent speed the entire time (for example, it's possible that the first 90% of a rope will burn in
1 minute, and the last 10% will take the additional 59 minutes to burn).

Given these two ropes and a matchbook, can you find a way to measure out exactly 45 minutes?

The key observation here is that if you light a rope from both ends at the same time, it will burn
in 1/2 the time it would have burned in if you had lit it on just one end.

Using this insight, you would light both ends of one rope, and one end of the other rope, all at the
same time. The rope you lit at both ends will finish burning in 30 minutes. Once this happens,
light the second end of the second rope. It will burn for another 15 minutes (since it would have
burned for 30 more minutes without lighting the second end), completing the 45 minutes.

Three people check into a hotel room. The bill is $30 so they each pay $10. After they go to the
room, the hotel's cashier realizes that the bill should have only been $25. So he gives $5 to the
bellhop and tells him to return the money to the guests. The bellhop notices that $5 can't be split
evenly between the three guests, so he keeps $2 for himself and then gives the other $3 to the
guests.

Now the guests, with their dollars back, have each paid $9 for a total of $27. And the bellhop has
pocketed $2. So there is $27 + $2 = $29 accounted for. But the guests originally paid $30. What
happened to the other dollar?

This riddle is just an example of misdirection. It is actually nonsensical to add $27 + $2, because
the $27 that has been paid includes the $2 the bellhop made.The correct math is to say that the
guests paid $27, and the bellhop took $2, which, if given back to the guests, would bring them to
their correct payment of $27 - $2 = $25.