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A Little Introduction
I have posted here the best riddles that I can remember and have received since starting this particular page. Maybe some time I will add a "mediocre" riddle area for the puzzles that I deem OK. As far as the riddles below, I think they are great. There is a definite answer and there are no hidden facts. I've worded them very carefully to make sure that they are solveable.
For some, the answers may seem obvious, but then maybe you're being a little hasty. I haven't posted the answers, so if you just want the answer, tough luck. You can contact me through email and tell me an answer and why, and then I'll respond, but you have to tell me why. Good luck and have fun.
PenPal97@gmail.com
Math Puzzles
A cube is composed of several unit cubes (1x1x1) such that the dimensions of the larger cube is 10x10x10. If the outer layer is removed, how many cubes are removed? (It is the equation used to solve this riddle that is important, not necessarily the answer.)
Diana is in an odd mood while driving her new Jetta. She starts off at a leisurely pace of 30mph. Half way to her destination (distance wise), she has a change of heart and floors it. How fast does Diana need to travel in order to arrive at her destination and have an average speed of 60mph for her entire trip?
Aileen is on a row boat in the exact center of a lake that is a perfect circle. She wants to get to shore to see her boyfriend in their log cabin. The problem is, there is a monster guarding the shore that is able to run all along the circumference of the lake. The monster is able to move 4 times as fast as Aileen can in the row boat, and it is a smart monster - at any point in time it will move along the circumference in such a way as to minimize the distance between itself and Aileen. If Aileen can make it to any spot on the shore before the monster, even if it is just a split second, she will be safe. How can Aileen get to shore safely and meet up with her boyfriend?
Three men checked into a hotel room for which they paid $30. The next day, the manager realized that the men had been overcharged. She gave the bellhop $5 to return to the three men. On the way to their room the bellhop decided to keep $2 for himself, and give each of the three men one dollar. The three men had now paid $9 each, or a total of $27. This plus the $2 the bellhop kept makes a total of $29. What happened to the other dollar?
Trivia
Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.
What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?
Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?
What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?
Only three words in standard English begin with the letters " dw" and they are all common words. Name them.
There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?
Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.
Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "S."
Riddles
Four people have to cross a narrow bridge at night. There is one flashlight and it must be used every trip across the bridge. Each person takes a different amount of time to cross the bridge: 1 min, 2 min, 4, min, and 8 min. Only two people can cross the bridge at a time and they can only travel as fast as the slowest person. What is the least amount of time required for all of them to cross the bridge?
There are 10 pill bottles in front of you that look exactly the same. Each contains 100 pills that look exactly the same. There is no way to tell them apart except:
You have a lousy scale that can only handle one more weighing. You need to take one 1.1 gram pill in the next few seconds or you will die. If you take the wrong pill, you will die. How can you determine which pill bottle contains the 1.1 gram pills?
A bad king has a cellar of 1,000 bottles of delightful and very expensive wine. A neighboring queen plots to kill the bad king and sends a servant to poison the wine. (Un)fortunately the bad king's guards catch the servant after he has only poisoned one bottle. Alas, the guards do not know which bottle but know that the poison is so strong that even if diluted 1,000,000 times it would still kill the king. Furthermore, it takes one month to have an effect. The bad king decides he will get some of the prisoners in his vast dungeons to drink the wine. Being a clever bad king he knows he can murder no more than 10 prisoners - believing he can fob off such a low death rate - and will still be able to drink the rest of the wine at his anniversary party in 5 weeks time. Explain how...
Table of Faust
The sphinx has challenged Faust to a game of life and death. There is a perfectly circular table with a bag containing an infinite number of quarters. The game is to place the quarters anywhere on the table but never have any two overlapping and cannot move a quarter already placed on the table. The first person who is unable to place a quarter loses. The sphinx says she will go first, but, being the smart person he is, Faust insist ons going first. How is he going to win?
Jabberwocky is on her way to town. She reaches a fork in the road and does not know which path to take. Two old women stand at the fork, one in front of each pathway. One woman always lies, and one always tells the truth. Jabberwocky is allowed to ask one question to one of the women. What question should she ask and to which woman?
Oski was out hunting in the woods and got a little lost when he suddenly falls into a pit, breaks his leg, and passes out. When Oski wakes up, he finds himself bandaged and in a tent, chained to a post buried in the ground. A shaman then enters the tent and tells Oski that he has trespassed on to sacred ground and will be sacrificed to the gods unless he can answer the ancient riddle. The shaman then throws 258 identical magic coins on the ground. Each coin has one red side, and one green side. The coins have magically arranged themselves such that exactly one-half of the coins are green side up, and the other half are red side up. Before Oski gets a good look at the coins, the shaman places a blindfold over Oski's eyes and tells Oski that he must divide the coins in to 2 piles such that the number of red coins in one pile exactly matches the number of red coins in the other. How can Oski survive this ordeal?
The Scarlet Knight has two cords and a lighter. Each cord is composed of different materials, for example: the 1st inch is made of nylon, the 2nd inch is made of silk, etc. As a result, he does not know how long any one section of a cord will take to burn. Also, each cord is different from the other. One cord takes exactly one hour to burn completely, but different sections of the cord burn at different unknown rates. How can the Scarlet Knight measure 15 minutes?
There is a ship with 5 very smart, but very greedy pirates. The crew consists of the Captain, his 1st mate, 2nd mate, 3rd mate, and 4th mate. The pirates have just plundered a chest full of gold coins, and the Captain decides how the gold will be divided. The captain will propose a division of the gold. If a majority of the crew agrees on that division, it is accepted and the deed is done. If a majority rejects the proposed division, the captain is thrown off the boat, and the next man in rank gets to propose a new division of the gold coins. Again, if a majority disagrees he is thrown off and the next ranking sailor gets to propose. And so on and so forth until a majority of the people left agree. If there is a tie, the proposal is accepted. When voting, everyone votes, including the person doing the dividing. Assuming you are the captain, what is the best possible division of gold? In other words, what's the division that will be accepted by a majority of the crew, and gets you as much gold as possible? Remember that all the pirates are incredibly smart, and incredibly greedy. So they will always only accept a division that maximizes their share of the gold.
There are 3 black hats and 2 white hats placed in a closet. There are 3 people who each close their eyes and remove one hat from the closet and place it on their head. After they open their eyes, each person can see what color hat the other people are wearing but not the color of their own hat. However, 1 of the 3 people is blind. The first person says "I do not know what color hat I am wearing." The second person then states "I do not know what color hat I am wearing." The blind person concludes by saying "I know what color hat I am wearing." What color hat is the blind person wearing?
Dean Rankin is driving the bus in the picture below. Is he traveling to the left or the right?
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5 married couples go to a party. Each person may or may not shake hands with someone else, but does not shake hands with their spouse. You ask everyone "How many people did you shake hands with?" and get a different response from every person. How many people did your spouse shake hands with?
There are 3 light switches outside of a room. There is one lamp in the room. Only 1 of the 3 switches controls the light. All 3 switches are currently set to OFF. From the outside, you cannot determine if the light is ON or OFF (no windows, door does not leak light, you cannot break down the door or cut an opening in a wall, or use special vision glasses to see inside, etc, etc.) But you do know that right now, with all 3 switches set to OFF, that the light is indeed OFF. For some odd reason, you can only go inside the room once. How do you determine which switch controls the light?
Puzzles
 Remove 3 toothpicks and leave 2 squares and 1 rectangle (3 if you are counting squares as rectangles) |
 Remove 2 toothpicks and leave 3 squares |
Daniel has just bought his first home and wants some landscaping work done on his front lawn. However, he is very particular on how he would like new trees to be planted. Daniel wants the landscaper to place 9 trees that form 10 lines and each line contains exactly 3 trees. Can you be Daniel's landscaper?
Find a way to use the basic math operators +, -, x, /, ( ) and the numbers 1, 5, 6, 7 to come up with 21. Each number is used as an individual, meaning they not should be combined to make new numbers like 15, 75, etc.