A One Letter Change

At my start I last a mere eleven days,
But change one letter and I’m over 31 years.

What am I?

One million seconds (about 11 1/2 days).

Change the “m” to a “b” to get one billion seconds (about 31.7 years).

It’s rather surprising that a million seconds and a billion seconds differ by such a large duration.

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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

Bird Flying Over the Ocean

When a bird flies over the ocean a part of the body touches the water but doesn’t get wet. What part is it?

The shadow

Posted in Riddles

Only One Color, But Not One Size

Only one color, but not one size,
stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies;
present in sun, but not in rain;
doing no harm, and feeling no pain.

A shadow.

Posted in Riddles

A Ring But No Finger

What has a ring but no finger?

A telephone or alarm.

Posted in Riddles

Born In December

Dustin was born on December 28th yet his birthday always falls in the summer. How is this possible?

Dustin is Australian, where the three hottest summer months are December, January and February.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Two Three Four Fifteen

What is the missing number?

2 3 4 15 12
3 4 5 28 20
4 5 6 45 30
5 6 7 66 42
6 7 8 ?? 56

91. To get the number in the fourth column, you add the numbers in column 1 and 2, then multiply by the number in column 2. f(n,m) = (n + m) * m
For example, f(2,3) = (2 + 3) * 3 = 15. Thus f(6,7) = (6 + 7) * 7 = 91

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If This Site Had a Phone Number

If this site had a phone number, I would want it to be 743-3537. Why?

Because the numbers on a phone would spell the word RIDDLES.

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Number Abbreviations

What do these represent?

24 = HiaD
26 = LotA
7 = DotW
9 = LoaC
12 = SotZ
88 = PK

24 hours in a day
26 letters of the alphabet
7 days of the week
9 lives of a cat
12 signs of the Zodiac
88 piano keys

Posted in Brain Teasers

Fred’s Packing Job

Fred was almost done packing for the day, with five packages left. Unfortunately, Fred dropped the labels and had no idea which label went to which package. What is the probability that Fred managed to correctly label exactly four of the five packages?

Zero. If Fred had correctly labeled four packages, the fifth label would belong to the fifth package and all packages would be correctly labeled. Therefore it is impossible to mislabel exactly four packages.

Posted in Brain Teasers