Question 1

How are the answers decided?

Accepted Answer

By arithmetic, not opinion. Every scenario was authored with a worked calculation using standard physical constants · latent heats, specific heats, tensile strengths, ρgh for pressure, ½ρv² for dynamic loads · and the reveal shows those numbers. Scenarios that could not be defended numerically were dropped during authoring.

Question 2

What does "gives way" mean exactly?

Accepted Answer

Whatever ends the contest for that side: shattering, melting, snapping, buckling, burning out, boiling away, or simply being unable to continue (a torch running empty against an anvil, two cars spinning their wheels against interleaved phone books). Exactly one side fails in every scenario · the other walks away.

Question 3

What changes with difficulty?

Accepted Answer

How counter-intuitive the contests get. Easy stays on scenarios you can reason out (a bathtub versus an ice block). Medium adds genuine coin-flips (a diamond versus a hydraulic press). Hard unlocks the reveals most people get wrong · one litre of lava losing to a tonne of ice, ordinary steel wire losing to spider silk, a Prince Rupert's drop beating a bullet.

Question 4

Will I see the same contest twice?

Accepted Answer

Not until you have seen every eligible scenario once. The game tracks which of the 61 hand-checked contests you have played at your difficulty and cycles the whole pool before anything repeats.

Question 5

Is the physics really correct?

Accepted Answer

Each explanation cites the constants it uses (334,000 joules per kilogram to melt ice, 101,000 pascals per 10 metres of water, 400 to 700 megapascals of surface compression in tempered glass) so you can check the arithmetic yourself. Real contests have messy details, so treat the verdicts as what the numbers say for the stated setup · that is the game's whole point.

Which Breaks?