About:

I will try to collect here a few of the better, less-known, riddles and paradoxes: ones that are easy to understand but hard to solve. There are also links to a few interesting articles and other things.

My works could be found on my academic site.

Riddles

  • Which of the following organisms is the closest to Homo sapiens (evolutionary):
    Fly / Nematode / Crab / Starfish ?
  • What is the function of this instrument?
    Mystery instrument
  • The moon is a harsh mistress [link]
  • Exchange of thoughts [link]
  • The prophet of coins (very hard) [link]
  • Most surprising IPhO question (IPhO 1989 Question No. 1) [link]

Physical paradoxes

  • The rope paradox (hard) [link]
  • The train paradox (hard) [link]
  • The Poynting-capacitor paradox (very hard / O E's) [link]

Interesting papers and links

  • What Problems to Solve - By Richard Feynman [link]
  • Einstein's Unknown Insight and the Problem of Quantizing Chaos
    A simple introduction to the correspondence between quantum chaology and classical chaos by A. Douglas Stone. [link]
  • The Science of Concert Hall Acoustics
    The science of building "anti-stealth" concert halls by T. John Cox and P. D'Antonio. [link]
    (possibly related to the image below)
    Concert hall acoustics
  • Paradoxes of the Aharonov-Bohm and the Aharonov-Casher effects
    L. Vaidman's suggestion of local mechanisms for the Aharonov-Bohm Phase. [link]
  • A microscopic derivation of the quantum measurement postulates
    V. Lysov & Y. Neiman review the field of "quantum foundations". [link]
  • Bayesianism and Causality, or, Why I Am Only a Half-Bayesian
    Judea Pearl. [link]
  • Miscellaneous:
    Coded aperture / Coded Mask
    Pythagorean cup
    The Golden Ratio (why it is so irrational)

Literature:

  • Shooting an Elephant / George Orwell [link]
  • Aluf Batzlut Ve'Aluf Shum (Hebrew) / Hayim Nahman Bialik [link]

Other sites:

  • Israeli Physics Olympiad
    The best place to learn physics in Israel for high school students (Hebrew). [link]
  • APhO 12 (Tel Aviv, 2011)
    Very nice questions of the 12th Asian Physics Olympiad. [link]
  • Prof. Yacov Kantor's Riddles [link]
  • Israeli Tournament of Towns
    In my opinion, the most interesting math competition in Israel (Hebrew). [link]