Last week, a Singapore high school math problem went viral on the Internet as people across the world scratched their heads over Bernard and Albert trying to deduce Cheryl’s birthday. (Why didn’t they just add her on Facebook and find out there, one wonders.)

The collective logical reasoning powers of Singapore’s high school students would be much better applied to some of the nation’s genuinely impossible-seeming mathematical conundrums.
For example:

Question 1. Cheryl has just bought a $148 ticket to an EDM music festival for which a total of 14,000 tickets have been sold. Bernard and Albert have also bought tickets and are flying in from Hong Kong for the awesome-sounding event. How many days prior to its slated date will the festival be canceled?

Question 2. A train is leaving Clarke Quay station traveling at 80km per hour. Albert is walking down a crowded train car at 5km  per hour when he spots with great indignation Cheryl and Bernard sharing a single seat and canoodling profusely. The time is 6:45pm. What time will Albert’s covert photo of the immoral couple go viral on STOMP?

Question 3. Cheryl, Bernard and Albert are standing on the corner of Geylang and Aljunied Roads at 10:40pm, heading home after exactly two rounds of beer because no one will sell them any more booze. They see 15 taxis with green lights on. There are 0 other people on the sidewalk hailing cabs. After how many attempts at begging will a taxi driver agree to take them home? Bonus: What time will it be by the time they get into bed and whine about it on Facebook?

Question 4. Bernard and Albert create and upload a YouTube video expressing unpopular political views. The video goes viral and gets 880,000 Cheryl sees the video and it offends her enormously. After 10 minutes of fuming, she defriends Bernard and Albert on Facebook and complains on her wall on and off for 12 hours. After how much time will Cheryl's sense of indignation compel her to call the police and file a report?

Please share this widely. Together, we can solve Singapore’s most pressing and difficult problems.

Photo credit: Flickr user maneeelm_99