Week of March 18
1.  A math teacher writes the following equations on the board:

a is not equal to b
a squared is equal to b squared

What numbers do I need to replace the two unknowns with--so that the two equations are correct?

5. Maria  claims to be able to answer correctly any question that is put to her.  What question could you put to her to be certain that her answer is wrong?
2.  The new ski lift manager of a ski resort wants to find out the number of benches available on one of the ski lifts.
The single piece of information he has to help him is that at the moment benches no. 130 and 110 are crossing at one end, and benches 250 and 290 are crossing at the other end.
How many benches are their on the ski lift in total?
3.  Yazan owns a number of collectible cars.  What is the total number of vehicles in his collection, given that all except 2 are red, all except 2 are black, and all except 2 are white?
4.  What is the special relationship between the following 4 numbers:  1, 2, 6, and 10?