100 Less Than 99

Where do you find that 100 is less than 99?

On a microwave. Most microwaves will run for a minute if you enter 100, but will run for a minute and 39 seconds if you enter 99.

100 is also less than 99 in an ordered ranking, where 1 is first, and 100th is a lower rank than 99th place.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Most Impressive Boundary

The most impressive boundary’s not a wall.
It’s not a manufactured thing at all.
Moving towards it won’t reduce the gap
and nothing marks its presence on a map.

The horizon.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

The Camel Race

An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What did the wise man say?

The wise man said to switch camels.

Each son owns a camel, let’s call them Camel A and Camel B. If Camel A is slower, son A gets the fortune. If Camel B is slower, son B gets the fortune. Neither of the sons want to enter the city first because they won’t get the fortune.

When they switch camels, son A is now riding his brother’s camel (camel B) and son B is riding his brother’s camel (camel A). Now, they each want the camel they’re riding to get to the city first. If son A wins the race on camel B, that means his camel, camel A, was slower and he wins the fortune. The same is true for the other way around if the second son wins the race on camel A.

Posted in Brain Teasers

What Can Lift Objects

What can lift objects
or hopelessly try,
but only when filled,
or, lifeless, it lies?

A glove.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

Aft to Fore and Fore to Aft

I run fore to aft on one side of a ship and aft to fore on the other. What am I?

The name of the ship.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

Fix This Roman Numeral Equation

This Roman numeral equation is wrong, but you can fix it without changing any of the elements of the equation. How is this possible?

I + XI = X

Look at it upside down. Instead of changing the equation, you can change your perspective.

This is from Dan Brown’s novel, Origin.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Teams Assembling Bikes

If 6 bike makers can assemble 9 bikes in a day and a half, how many of them would it take to assemble 270 bikes in 30 days?

9. Each bike maker can assemble one bike a day.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Travel a Lot Meet Both Rich and Poor

I travel a lot and meet both the rich and the poor, but nobody knows where I am going next. I’m invisible but you can see what I do. Who or what am I?

Wind (or anything blown by the wind). It moves all over, reaches the rich and the poor equally and no one knows exactly which way the next gust of wind will blow. You can’t see the wind, but you can see what it blows, like leaves or dust.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

Same Three Digits with Sum of 800

When Florence and Willie finished playing darts, they proudly announced that their 3-digit scores added up to exactly 800 points. Furthermore, each of their scores shared the same 3 digits, without any repeating digits.

What were their two scores?

364 and 436.

You could figure this out mathematically, but instead, I plugged in digits that added up to 10 for the first column, 9 for the second column (since you carry the 1) and 7 for the third column (again, because you’re carrying the 1).

Posted in Brain Teasers

What Do These Dates Have In Common?

What do these dates have in common?

15 February 1984
2 July 1983
16 December 1983

They all fall in the middle.
15 February was the middle of February (1984 being a leap year).
2 July was the middle day of the year 1983.
And 16 December was the middle of December.

Posted in Brain Teasers