Riddles and Brain Teasers - Hopping Up Your Brain

Picking Red Balls

A bag contains 64 balls of eight different colors. There are eight of each color (including red).
What is the smallest number you would have to pick, without looking, to be sure of selecting 3 red balls?

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59. The first 56 balls could all be non-red colors. If that happened, you’d have to choose from the 8 remaining balls, all of which would be red.

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Take It And You Will Lose

Take it and you will lose or gain more than all others.

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Risk.

(found in The Copper Gauntlet by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare)

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Seemingly Simple Math

What is the answer to this math problem:

8 ÷ 2 (2 + 2)

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16 or 1, depending.According to PEMDAS, parentheses come first: 8 ÷ 2 (4)Then, even though multiplication is first in PEMDAS, you go left to right: 4 (4) = 16If you got 1, you’re in good company. That’s what I got at first too but most calculators I’ve tried get 16.I found this at Popular Mechanics and the debate continues online.

16 or 1, depending.

According to PEMDAS, parentheses come first: 8 ÷ 2 (4)

Then, even though multiplication is first in PEMDAS, you go left to right: 4 (4) = 16

If you got 1, you’re in good company. That’s what I got at first too but most calculators I’ve tried get 16.

I found this at Popular Mechanics and the debate continues online.

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I Wear You Down

I wear you down, yet you will mourn me once I fly.
You can kill me, but I will never die.

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Time.

(found in The Copper Gauntlet by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare)

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Long and Thin

Long and thin, red within,
With a nail at the end.

What am I?

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A finger.

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Brothers And Sisters Of Leopold

If Leopold had one more sister he would have twice as many sisters as brothers.
If he had one more brother he would have the same number of each.

How many brothers and sisters does Leopold have?

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Three sisters and two brothers.

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PK II Rebus

What does this represent?

PK
II
PD
ES

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Pipe down kids.

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Tagged with rebus

Swiftest Traveling Horses

Two horses,
Swiftest traveling,
Harnessed in a pair,
And grazing ever in places,
Distant from them.

What am I?

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Eyes.

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Sum of Consecutives

What is the sum of the numbers in the following list which are consecutive?

15  5 10 28
24  7 18 26
11 21 17 13
22  9  1 20

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The consecutive numbers are: 9, 10, 11; 17, 18; and 20, 21, 22.

The sum of those numbers is 128.

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I Am Both Safe and Secure

As a whole, I am both safe and secure.
Behead me, I become a place of meeting.
Behead me again, I am the partner of ready.
Restore me, I become the domain of beasts.

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Stable. A table is a place of meeting. Able and ready is a common phrase, and a stable is where beasts reside (beasts of burden, not beasts like the one in Beauty and the Beast who lived in a glorious castle but the west wing was forbidden to enter until Belle…I’ve said too much!).

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