Interview Questions

If Sidecar wants to infiltrate the bank as a security guard, he’ll have to undergo a high-pressure interview.


  • How many potato chips have been consumed on the campus of MIT since its inception in 1861?
  • How many drops of water are there in all of Europa’s oceans?
  • If, once the coin for the 2025 MIT Mystery Hunt was found, you hired someone to read the words in the Oxford English Dictionary (not including the definitions) as a full-time job, how many minutes from starting their job would it take them to read the answer to this puzzle? (Include time off.)
  • How many grains of rice have ever been consumed in Asia?
  • What is the combined age, in years, of all the authors of this question?
  • How many atoms were in the ink molecules used to print this page? (Include the water solvent.)
  • How likely is it that a monkey produces the exact answer to this puzzle using a typewriter on their first try (assuming said monkey is sure to avoid numbers and punctuation?) (Write the reciprocal of the probability.)
  • How many microseconds would it take an able-bodied member of your team to sharpen a pack of pencils down to nubs with a manual pencil sharpener (assuming they were really trying and using their dominant hand?)
  • How many bank robberies will there be in the US in 2024 (including Finster’s?)

BONUS QUESTION: What is ⌊log10(x)⌋, where x is the answer to each of the previous questions?

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