10 Minute Trains

Time for this week's puzzler.

Many years ago, one of our producers lived in New York. And he was a two-timing guy, he had two girlfriends, you see.

One of the girlfriend's lived in Brooklyn and the other lived in the Bronx.

He could never decide which one to visit. He liked both of them equally, and decided that he would just throw it to fate. He knew that when he went down to get the train, he would descend the stairs into the subway and pretty soon a train would come. And if it was the Bronx train, he'd get on the train and go visit the girl in the Bronx. If it was the Brooklyn train, he'd get on and visit the girlfriend in Brooklyn. And what made it great was that the trains ran equally often, every 10 minutes.

So he decided that he would go down to the train at random times during the day or night. He didn't know the schedules of these trains, but he did know that every 10 minutes there would be a Brooklyn train, and every 10 minutes there would be a Bronx train. He figures his chances are 50/50, either way.

However, he finds himself going to Brooklyn 9 out of 10 times. Even though the trains run equally, every 10 minutes to each location, and he chooses random times to go down to the train, he ends up 9 out of 10 times going to Brooklyn.

Why was this happening?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Frosting

This one is familiar... We may have used it in the past. Or a similar one... So we will change it up a bit.

Years ago, we had a party for our Ma. We decided to have a big celebration for her. So, we baked a cake.

There were 5 of us at this celebration. The cake we made was a perfect square. It was 10 inches on each side, and about 5 inches high. We frosted this cake across the top and the four 10 inch sides.

And the question is, how would you cut this cake so that each and every one of the five people at the party would get a piece that had not only the same volume, but the same amount of frosting?