Four Gallons From Two Buckets

You have two buckets. One holds exactly five gallons and the other three gallons. How can you measure exactly four gallons of water into the five gallon bucket?

Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that there are no measurement markings of any kind on the buckets.

  1. Fill the 3-gallon bucket.
  2. Pour the 3 gallons of water into the 5-gallon bucket
  3. Fill the 3-gallon bucket again.
  4. Fill up the 5-gallon bucket with the 3-gallon bucket, leaving you with 1 gallon left in the 3-gallon bucket.
  5. Empty out the 5-gallon bucket.
  6. Pour the remaining 1 gallon of water from the 3-gallon bucket into the 5-gallon bucket.
  7. Fill the 3-gallon bucket.
  8. Pour the 3 gallons of water from the 3-gallon bucket into the 5-gallon bucket leaving you with 4 gallons of water in the 5-gallon bucket.

Alternate solution:

  1. Fill up the 5 gallon bucket
  2. Pour it into 3 gallon bucket, leaving 2 gallons
  3. Empty out the 3 gallon bucket
  4. Pour the 2 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket into the 3 gallon bucket
  5. Fill up the 5 gallon bucket and pour it into the 3 gallon bucket until it’s full, leaving 4 gallons in the 5 gallon bucket.
Posted in Brain Teasers

Twice As Many Women As Children

At a party of thirty-five people there are twice as many women as children and twice as many children as men. How many of each are there?

20 women, 10 children and 5 men.

To figure it out, let m be the number of men and you get this equation:

4m + 2m + m = 35
7m = 35
m = 35 ÷ 7
m = 5

Posted in Brain Teasers

Standing World

What does this represent?

Standing
World

Standing on top of the world

Posted in Riddles
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Something To Everybody And Nothing To Everyone Else

What is something to everybody and nothing to everyone else?

Your mind.

Posted in Riddles

In Different Ways It’s Proudly Shown

In different ways, it’s proudly shown,
though many like it to have been sewn.
It’s never torn from being worn,
but when it’s torn, it should be burned.

A flag. They are displayed proudly in a variety of ways and are sewn on shirts. They are discarded from being too worn, but if torn or worn, they’re burned out of respect.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

Five Pigeons on a Fence

Five pigeons are sitting on a fence. The farmer comes out and shoots one. How many are left?

None, the rest flew away at the sound of the gunshot. Or one (the dead pigeon).

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Shorter Word

What word becomes shorter when you add letters to it?

Short. Adding ‘er’ to short gives you shorter.

Posted in Riddles

A Human with Five Hands

How can a human have five hands?

In addition to the two hands on the end of their arms, they also have three hands of cards. Another alternative could be handwriting, of which most people have one, but that could be added into the mix.

Posted in Riddles

Painting a Bigger Room

A painter needed 3 days to paint a room. How long would it take him, working at the same rate, to paint a room twice as large (twice the width and twice the height)?

12 days because the walls would be four times as big as the first room.

If the walls are 10 ft x 10 ft, then each wall has 100 square feet. Adding the four walls makes 400 square feet to paint. Doubling the width and height of the walls to 20 ft x 20 ft means each wall is now 400 square feet, for a total of 1600 square feet to paint. 1600 ft is four times 400 square feet, thus if it took him 3 days to paint 400 square feet, it will take 12 days (or four times as much) to paint 1600 square feet.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Ten Men and Women

TEN = 20, 5, 14
MEN = 13, 5, 14

What do WOMEN equal using the same logic?

WOMEN = 23, 15, 13, 5, 14

The number is the letter’s position in the alphabet.

Posted in Brain Teasers