Almost Catching Fire

People come and watch, from far away to see
Burning brightly, almost catching fire,
The colder it is the hotter I’ll be.
Then I die.

What am I?

Fall leaves changing colors. “Burning” with bright colors, when it’s cold outside the brighter the colors are.

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What Comes Next I S I T

What comes next in this series?

I S I T P N A A D L I I Y N ___

The letter A.

There are three separate series

1. Starting with the first letter and taking every third letter you get ITALY.
2. Starting with the second letter and taking every third letter you get SPAIN.
3. Starting with the third letter and taking every third letter you get INDIA.

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If You Look You Cannot See Me

If you look you cannot see me. If you see me you cannot see anything else. I can make anything you want happen, but later everything goes back to normal.

What am I?

Your imagination.

Posted in Riddles

Twice Is 99 More Than Half

What number satisfies this requirement? Twice the number is 99 more than half of the number.

66.

2 × 66 = 132 and 132 – 66 / 2 = 99.

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Complete the Word Square

A word square is a combination of words that can be spelled horizontally and vertically.

The most well known is called the Sator Square (in Latin):

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

What five words complete this word square?

I T C H E S
T _ _ _ _ _
C _ _ _ _ _
H _ _ _ _ _
E _ _ _ _ _
S _ _ _ _ _

Thrust, Crisco, Hussar, Escape and Stores.

Making this lovely word square below:

I T C H E S
T H R U S T
C R I S C O
H U S S A R
E S C A P E
S T O R E S
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A Group of Three

I give you a group of three. One is sitting down, and will never get up. The second eats as much as is given to him, yet is always hungry. The third goes away and never returns.

Stove, fire, smoke.

Posted in Riddles

Two Two Four Sequence

What number comes next?

2, 2, 4, 12, 48, ___

240. To get the number, multiply the previous number in the series by its position. 48 is in the 5th position, so 48 × 5 = 240

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An Apparition

Two people were in a house. No one came in or went out, but then there were three people. What happened?

The two people were a husband and an expectant wife, who gave birth to her baby.

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Odd Start, Even Finish

What three letter English word has an odd start, an even finish and an infinitely long middle?

The word vex. “v” is Roman numeral 5, which is odd. “x” is Roman numeral 10, which is even. “e” is the base of the natural logarithm and is irrational (e = 2.718281828…). Its mantissa (the part to the right of the decimal point) is infinitely long.

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How Many Mangoes?

From a basket of mangoes when counted in twos there was one extra,
counted in threes there were two extra,
counted in fours there were three extra,
counted in fives there were four extra,
counted in sixes there were five extra,
but counted in sevens there were no extras.

At least how many mangoes were there in the basket?

119. The number has to be evenly divisible by seven for there to be no extras when counting in sevens, and it has to be odd in order for there to be one extra when counting by twos. It also can’t be evenly divisible by three through six. 119 is the first odd multiple of 7 that satisfies the requirements.

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