2 More Challenging Riddles!

These are slightly harder than the previous ones I have posted. Everyone seems to be getting the others pretty easily, or close to the correct answers, do the difficulty was raised slightly.


1.) There are four (4) people that were kidnapped and are faced with this riddle to save their lives:

The killer has loaded each of the four (4) guys up with explosives that will detonate if more than one (1) word comes out of any of their mouths (Don't ask me how, just accept it). Now, he lines the 4 men up in a single file line, and takes out 4 hats; 2 green ones and 2 red ones. The 4 men are temporarily blindfolded as he randomly places each of the hats on them (so 2 are wearing a green colored one, and the other 2 are wearing the red colored ones). Next, he places a wall between the First and the Second man, that way, the Second, Third, and Fourth men can't see the First.

Knowing this, it is safe to say that the Third man can only see the Second man, and the Fourth man can only see the Second and Third man. Now, the blindfolds are taken off (and no, there was no possible way for any of them to see anything while they were on), and now the killer tells the 4 men that they collectively have 30 seconds to shout out the color of the hat they are wearing (only their hat color, not anyone else's).

No forms of signaling or anything tricky will be done or else the killer will set off the explosives himself. Someone will always be 100% sure of what color hat they have on. Who is that person, and why are they saying it so confidently?

2.) You have two (2) non-homogenous wires, each that burn exactly 1 hour. Using those 2 wires and 1 lighter, how can you figure out exactly 15 minutes? This is a theoretical answer, so when I say no estimating, I mean that no estimating in terms of folding the wires or anything like that.



Good Luck!