If only we humans could sleep as well as animals. They somehow catch z’s even when they’re on the move. Water animals who need to breathe air have no choice: they can’t just sink to the ocean floor while napping! So dolphins let 1/2 of the brain sleep while the other half is awake, with one eye open. Seals sleep this way too, leaving one flipper ready to flap. Meanwhile, birds called albatrosses can sleep while flying! Wonder what kinds of dreams these animals have.
Wee ones: Close your 2 eyes. Now open both. Now see if you can wink: try to close just 1 eye!
Little kids: If 3 seals and 3 dolphins are napping, each with 1 eye open, how many eyes are closed? Bonus: If there are 10 dolphins and 1/2 of them are sleeping with 1 eye open and the rest are wide awake, how many open eyes do they have altogether?
Big kids: Sloths, the laziest animals out there, sleep as much as 20 hours in one day. If you sleep just 10 hours a night, how much more than you does a sloth sleep in a week? Bonus: If an albatross flies for 2 hours and sleeps 1/5 of the time, how many minutes of sleep does it get? (Reminder: An hour has 60 minutes.)
The sky’s the limit: Suppose a bunch of dolphins are trying to nap, and those who are succeeding each have 1 eye open. If there are the same number of awake dolphins as sleeping dolphins, and there are 40 more open eyes than closed ones, how many dolphins are there in total, and how many are asleep vs. awake?
Answers:
Wee ones: Do your best to give a wink!
Little kids: 6 eyes closed. Bonus: 15 eyes: 10 open eyes on the 5 awake dolphins, and 5 open eyes on the sleeping ones.
Big kids: 70 more hours, since it sleeps 10 hours more than you each day. Bonus: 24 minutes (1/5 of 120).
The sky’s the limit: There are 40 dolphins, 20 of whom are awake and 20 of whom are sleeping. Every awake dolphin has 2 open eyes, and for each of those dolphins there’s another dolphin with 1 open eye and 1 closed. So each asleep/awake pair has 3 open eyes and 1 closed — which means there are 3 times as many open eyes as closed for the whole group. Since the open number is 3 times the closed number, the gap between them is the same as 2 sets of closed eyes (2/3 of the total opens). 40 is 2/3 of 60, so there are 60 open eyes and 20 closed. That must mean 20 1-eye-sleeping dolphins.
