Puzzler of the week

[Scott MacLean]

This week's puzzler:

The seven employees of the Coney Island Crab Cake Company are sitting in the lunchroom having lunch, when they
decide that they would like to know the average salary at the company.

Obviously, each person could write down his salary, they could add the salaries and divide by seven. But, they don't want to do that because nobody wants to divulge his salary.

As luck would have it, the boss enters the lunchroom. The employees ask if he can tell them the average salary. He says, "No, but I can tell you the highest salary and the lowest. And I can tell you that none of you earn the same amount. But I can't tell you what the average salary is -- you'll have to figure that out for yourselves."

Here�s my question. Is there a way for these seven people in the lunchroom to figure out what the average salary is, without divulging anyone�s salary AND without discovering the highest and lowest salaries?

Last week's puzzler:

One of the ways that allied agents in World War II used to get microfilm past German guards was to hide it in hollow coat buttons -- not the kind that you have on your shirt, where the thread goes through, but the kind with the loop in the back like you'd have on a coat. The top of the buttons screwed on and off like a jar lid.

This worked for a while, but somehow the Germans became aware of this particular trick and they started giving a twist to the buttons on the coat of anyone they weren't sure of, to see if it unscrewed.

When the allies found out the trick had been discovered, the people in charge of preparing clothing for new undercover agents had to make a change.

They made one change, and none of those hollow buttons were ever discovered again.

What DID they do?

Last week's puzzler answer:

There were a lot of things they could have done. They could have applied some adhesive making them difficult to turn or they could have put some kind of a locking pin. But what they thought of was even better. They made the threads left hand thread.

So when the Germans twisted the buttons, they in fact didn't come off, they got tighter. And after they failed in a few attempts, they gave up on it because they just figured they're not using that trick anymore.

_______________________
Scott MacLean
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http://www.nerosoft.com