King Ferdinand has no immediate living relatives and decides to hold a contest to find a worthy successor when he dies. He gives a seed to every contestant and explains that the person with the healthiest and most beautiful plant will win the throne.
When the final day of the contest arrives, the king finds hundreds of plants of all shapes and sizes. However, he ignores them and awards the throne to a girl holding a pot with only moist dirt.
King Ferdinand was a kind and trusting man and wanted to be sure he found an honest heir. He gave small pebbles to all the contestants, claiming they were seeds. Therefore, any contestant with a plant had switched their “seed” in order to win. Everyone but the girl had been dishonest.
Supposedly this is given as a test in Japan. I have no idea if that’s accurate.
There are 8 people who have to cross the river on a raft.
1. Policeman
2. Thief
3. Father
4. Boy 1
5. Boy 2
6. Mother
7. Girl 1
8. Girl 2
The rules are:
Only two people can cross at a time.
Only the adults can operate the raft.
The father can’t be with the girls unless the mother is there.
The mother can’t be with the boys unless the father is there.
The thief can’t remain with anyone unless the policeman is present.
How do you get them all across?
Instead of working it out by hand, here’s a flash version.
Click on the circle to start. Click on a person to put them on the raft and click on the lever to make the raft cross.
I’m built from anything you don’t like,
You’re using me right now in fact,
I am one but represent many,
When attacked I’m easily cracked,
I’m created in seconds but live forever
And though you may not understand,
I’ll help you do well but be careful my friend,
Hurt me and you won’t withstand.
Kids are often told, when dealing with unpleasant things, that it builds character. You’re reading the characters this riddle is written with. In computer science a char is often represented by one byte and can store any character you want.
When politicians have their character besmirched it can swiftly change the voting public’s mind about them. Characters in novels are created with a few lines but live on in our memories. And if your character or reputation is damaged, you may find it hard to deal with the aftermath.
And here’s a great quote from Warren Buffet on your character.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” — Warren Buffet
Your back. You have one and it’s easy to touch but hard to look it. A common phrase is to “watch your back” and it’s common to “have your friend’s back.” When apologizing, you often want to take back what you said. You can throw out your back, but you can’t throw it away. And back pain causes people pain every day.