Whenever I'm stupid enough to think that I'm smart, a brain teaser like this usually comes along and brings me back down to Earth:
There are 3 light switches on a wall in the basement. One of them turns on a lamp that's up in the attic. You can manipulate the 3 switches as much as you want, but you're only allowed one trip up to the attic to see if the lamp's on. How do you figure out which of the 3 switches works turns on the lamp?
I thought about this for several minutes but couldn't solve it. However, like all the best puzzles, once I saw the solution I realized it was perfect and that I could've (theoretically) come up with it, since there were no absurd assumptions or tricks involved.
Can you solve it? Leave a comment with your solution if you have one. I'll post the 'real' solution in a comment sometime later (though other solutions are certainly possible).
[This came courtesy of BoingBoing and The Guardian website.]
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