Some More Puzzles

What is Lateral thinking?It is a word that was invented by Edward DeBono in 1967. Somewhere along the way it has officially become a part of the English language. On DeBono's official web site, he says there are several ways to define it.

Essentially, lateral thinking is a way of attacking problems from other angles, as opposed to the more traditional linear and logical ways.

DeBono has also come up with various tools to help us think in these lines.I would like to present some thinking puzzles which will help us to think in a different direction.

The Coin

John is on a raft, adrift in the ocean with several other survivors of a shipwreck. The others are too weak, so he or Mike will swim to a nearby island to look for help. It is almost certainly suicidal, due to the circling sharks, but they have little else to hope for. Mike takes the lose change from his pocket and puts two pennies in a hat. He tells John that one is a 2005 penny, and the other 1975. If John picks the newer penny he can stay on the rat, and Mike will risk his life. If John picks the older penny, he must go. John has seen that both pennies were actually dated 1975, but he doesn't want to say anything, because Mike is a big guy. How does he win, and get Mike to go, without exposing him as a fraud in front of the others?

There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half of the distance up riding in the elevator and has to walk the rest of the way up unless it's raining! How can this be?

Mel Colly stared through the dirty soot-smeared window on the 26th floor of the office tower. Overcome with depression he slid the window open and jumped through it. After he landed he was completely unhurt. Since there was nothing to cushion his fall or slow his descent, how could he have survived?

Answers:

John picked up a coin and accidently slipped into the ocean.The coin remaining in Mikes hand was 1975,so it is assumed that John picked 2005 dated coin.Mike cant tell that the other coin was also 1975 because he will be proven as a liar and people at that time is in no mood to tolerate a liar.

The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons (assuming the levels of the buttons designating floors increases from bottom to top). However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons using it.

Mel Colly was so sick and tired of window washing, he opened the window and jumped inside. Alternatively, Mel's office was in another building, on the first floor, and he was looking at the 26th-floor window of another tower; "the window" in the second sentence then refers to that of Mel's office, not the 26th-floor one. Mel could also have had a balcony. (uh, then why was it "miraculous"? If he only fell a few feet, there's nothing miraculous about his survival