During a math exam, Willy asks Ms. Matilda, the teacher, how much time is left. Ms. Matilda is known for being obtuse and answers that the amount of time left is 1/5 of the time already completed and that is also how much time is left, in a manner of speaking.
15 minutes. The total exam time is 90 minutes. If 15 minutes are left, 75 minutes have already passed, and one fifth of 75 is 15. However, if you follow Ms. Matilda’s hint and pay attention to only the numbers in 1/5, you get the answer of 15 minutes as well.
My family sings Christmas carols at the hospital where my wife works.
We do this every year and since we started, have not missed a single year.
The next time we do this will be the 18th consecutive Christmas.
My 15 year old daughter has been every time.
She was born in March 1999 so the first year she came was December 1999 (before her 1st birthday).
Her first time was when she was 0, second time when she was 1, third time when she was 2, etc…
Now that she is 15, she has been 16 times. Oh and of course she was also present in December 1998 in her mum’s belly, due to be born the next March.
So, a total of 17 times and next time will be the 18th.
Thanks to Michael for submitting this real-life brain teaser about his family.
What is the longest unscientific English word that uses every letter in the word exactly twice? For example, noon has two Ns and two Os, but it’s not nearly long enough.
Happenchance. There are two Hs, two As, and so on for all the letters in the word. The longest scientific word with the same property is probably esophagographers.
A word with horizontal symmetry is one whose letters are a mirror image of themselves. If you drew a horizontal line across the word and folded it over, it would overlap on itself. For example, EXCEEDED and ICEBOX have horizontal symmetry, but VERTICAL and SIMPLE do not.
What is the longest word with horizontal symmetry?