## Overflowing martini glass

This Riddler puzzle is all about conic sections.

You’ve kicked your feet up and have drunk enough of your martini that, when the conical glass (🍸) is upright, the drink reaches some fraction p of the way up its side. When tipped down on one side, just to the point of overflowing, how far does the drink reach up the opposite side?

Here is my solution:
[Show Solution]

## Counting parallelograms

The following problem appeared in the 1991 CMO, and it has a particularly clever solution.

In the figure, the side length of the large equilateral triangle is $3$ and $f(3)$, the number of parallelograms bounded by sides in the grid, is $15$. For the general analogous situation, find a formula for $f(n)$, the number of parallelograms, for a triangle of side length $n$.

[Show Solution]

## Proud partygoers puzzle

Another great problem from the Riddler blog.

A group of N people are in attendance at your shindig, some of whom are friends with each other. (Let’s assume friendship is symmetric — if person A is friends with person B, then B is friends with A.) Suppose that everyone has at least one friend at the party, and that a person is “proud” if her number of friends is strictly larger than the average number of friends that her own friends have. (A competitive lot, your guests.)

Importantly, more than one person can be proud. How large can the share of proud people at the party be?

The solution:
[Show Solution]

## A clever integral

I was recently reminded of this problem from one of my favorite books: Problem-Solving Through Problems. The problem originally appeared in the 1980 Putnam Competition.

Evaluate the following definite integral.

$\int_0^{\pi/2} \frac{\mathrm{d}x}{1 + (\tan x)^{\sqrt{2}}}$

The solution:
[Show Solution]

## Elevator button puzzle

This problem was originally posted on the Riddler blog. Here it goes:

In a building’s lobby, some number (N) of people get on an elevator that goes to some number (M) of floors. There may be more people than floors, or more floors than people. Each person is equally likely to choose any floor, independently of one another. When a floor button is pushed, it will light up.

What is the expected number of lit buttons when the elevator begins its ascent?

My solution:
[Show Solution]

A much more elegant solution, courtesy of Ross Boczar
[Show Solution]