A Big Pizza Pie

To get the most pizza, should you order two 12″ pizzas or one 18″ pie?

One 18″, with ~255 sumptuous square inches. Two 12″ pizzas would only give you ~226 square inches.

Note: The area of a circle is = πr2.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Rope Around The Earth

If a piece of rope was tightly wrapped around the earth and you added 3 feet to its length, how high could you uniformly raise it from the earth’s surface?

Just short of 6 inches.

Thanks to Nigel Coldwell for this one.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Rotating Coins Around Coins

You have two coins of equal size on a table, situated end to end vertically. If you roll the top coin around the bottom coin until it returns to its original position, how many times will it have rotated?

Twice. See this video for more details.

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BERETT ELTA NATH RENEV

Rearrange the letters of each word in the phrase below to form a well-known saying.

BERETT ELTA NATH RENEV

Better Late Than Never

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Bank Wait Times

Suppose a small bank has one teller and customer transactions take 10 minutes on average. With 5.8 customers arriving per hour, what is the expected wait time? What would it be if you added a second teller?

With one teller, customers will wait nearly five hours on average. But adding a second teller makes the wait go down to 3 minutes.

Thanks to John D. Cook for this one.

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The Sheep’s Will

A farmer dies leaving a will dividing his flock of nineteen sheep with the following ratios:

Half to his oldest son, a quarter to the middle son and one fifth to his youngest son.

Without cutting any sheep up, how did the executor of the will fulfill the farmer’s wishes?

The executor went to the neighbouring farm and asked to borrow a sheep for a few minutes. Then he returned to the sons and said, “Half of the (now) twenty sheep is 10. A quarter of the twenty sheep is 5. A fifth of the twenty sheep is 4. 10 + 5 + 4 = 19. Then the executor took the borrowed 20th sheep back to the neighbour.

Thanks to Annette for sending this in.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Ages Of Myself and My Brother

My current age, is the age of my 14 year-old brother plus one third of my age. How old will I be when my brother is twice his current age?

I will be 35. I am currently 21.

x = my current age

x = 14 + x/3
3x = 42 + x
2x = 42
x = 21 (so 14 years later, I'll be 35)
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Word Value Of 52

If every letter of the alphabet is worth its numerical value (A=1, B=2, C=3), what’s a common 11-letter word whose letter values total only 52?

Abracadabra

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He And She Both Have One Each

He and she both have one each, but every person has two. A citizen has three and a human being has four. A personality has five and an inhabitant of earth has six. What are they?

Syllables.

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Augustus’ Candy

Augustus loves candy and much to his delight, his three favorites are on sale. One each of gum, chocolate and caramel cost 40 cents. A caramel is over three times the price of gum. Six gums are worth more than chocolate. A caramel plus two gums cost less than chocolate. What is the price of each candy?

Gum = 4 cents
Chocolate = 23 cents
Caramel = 13 cents

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