I am a word of 5 letters and people eat me. If you remove the first letter I become a form of energy. Remove the first two and I’m needed to live. Scramble the last 3 and you can drink me. What am I?
My days are in the summer When you’ll eat me when I’m hot In fact I’ll even eat myself Where battles tough are fought But when you find me in a fight ‘Twill be high in the sky And if you catch me napping I suggest you let me lie When you’re bad come to my house From Ma get thoughts profound Am I big or am I small? Some say I’m just a pound.
1. Canada – 202,080 km / 125,567 mi 2. Indonesia – 54,716 km / 33,998 mi 3. Russia – 37,653 km / 23,396 mi 4. Philippines – 36,289 km / 22548 mi 5. Japan – 29,751 km / 18,486 mi 6. Australia – 25,760 km / 16,006 mi 7. Norway – 25,148 km / 15,626 mi 8. United States – 19,924 km / 12,380 mi 9. New Zealand – 15,134 km / 9403 mi 10. China – 14,500 km / 9009 mi
Note: Greenland has 44,087 km of coastline but it is not yet a fully independent country.
I hesitated to add this because it’s poorly worded, ambiguous and the answer could be almost anything. I prefer teasers with a single answer, but there you go.
If you came up with a different answer and can explain how you did it, don’t think you’re wrong. It’s probably just as valid. Feel free to share yours in the comments.
My answer for the first number is 2.
Here’s how I got it.
The generic rule for a number in the sequence is: 2^(n – 1) + 1, where n is the position in the sequence.
Note: The teaser doesn’t specify the position of 17. In this case, it’s fifth.
Position 1: (so n = 1) is 2^(1 – 1) + 1 = 2
Position 2: 2^(2 – 1) + 1 = 3
Position 3: 2^(3 – 1) + 1 = 5
Position 4: 2^(4 – 1) + 1 = 9
Position 5: 2^(5 – 1) + 1 = 17
For the curious, the next 5 numbers of the sequence would be:
A tailor can make a pair of pants from the scraps left over from sewing up five pairs of pants. If he has twenty-five scraps, how many pairs of pants can he make?
Six pairs of pants. He can make five initially, but once he’s done making five pairs of pants, he’ll have five remaining sets of scraps, meaning he can make an additional pair of pants, totaling six.
I hide in the daylight but prefer the sun, I have no fingers but can hold a gun, I have three eyes but cannot see, I live on land but in a tree, I’m spotted in pink and cannot grow, When you look away is when I show.