Mixture of Coffee and Tea

Suppose we lay down two cups in front of you. One of the cups is filled with tea and the other one with coffee. Now we ask you to take a spoonful of tea and mix it with the coffee. 

At this moment, the coffee cup has a mixture of tea and coffee. You have to take that mixture (spoonful) and add it back to the tea. 

Can you now tell if the cup of coffee has more tea or the cup of tea has more coffee ?

Skip to the answer! 

Source 

Component Levels in Mixture

How mixture made?

After adding 1 spoon of tea into coffee, the levels of liquids in both cups must be unequal. Whatever now tea cup is missing is now in cup of coffee & mixed with coffee. The content of tea in the cup of coffee is certainly more.

Now after taking spoonful of the mixture back to tea cup the levels of the liquid in both cups would be same. Hence, whatever the cup of tea is missing is replaced by coffee. That missing tea content is now in the cup of coffee where it has replaced some of coffee content! 

Suppose there are 1000 molecules in each cup i.e. of tea & coffee. Let's assume 100 molecules of tea are mixed to coffee using spoon. Now, coffee cup will have 1100 molecules and tea will have 900 molecules. Obviously, right now the cup of coffee contains more tea (100 molecules) that coffee in cup of tea (0 molecules)!

Now while taking 100 molecules back from mixture having 1100 molecules, suppose 70 molecules of coffee & 30 of tea are taken. That means, exactly 100 - 30 = 70 molecules of tea left in mixture. That 70 + 30 molecules mixture is poured into cup of tea. That is exact 70 molecules of coffee mixed in tea.

What does it mean? 70 molecules of coffee have displaced 70 molecules of tea into cup of coffee maintaining level of both the liquids. 

We can say other way as well. 30 molecules of tea displaced 30 molecules of coffee into cup of tea while maintaining levels of both the liquids same. 

So the answer is both have same level of contents mixed.