Applying for work at Google?

When you apply for work at any high-tech company, it is part of the hiring process for you to be given some very odd questions. The idea is that although you may not get the right answer, your trying to solve these shows how you think and solve problems. The London Times has a few of the questions that Google asks and the comments section has some serious and not so serious attempts at answering. Here are three of them:

If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands?

How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?

Fun stuff! My favorite from when I worked at Microsoft was:

You have a room with three light bulbs in it.
Outside of the room are three switches.
The switches are not labeled as to which light bulb they control.
You cannot see the individual light bulbs from where the switches are.

You have access to the switches and then you walk into the room and from that, tell me which switch goes to which lightbulb.

Answer is actually pretty easy.