Seconds in a Year

How many seconds are there in a year?

Hint: You don’t need a calculator

24. If you said 12 for January 2nd, February 2nd, etc that’s close, but you forgot about January 22nd, February 22nd and so on. If you are a math whiz and didn’t need a calculator to perform 60 x 60 x 24 x 365, then 31,536,000 works too. If you used 365.25 to account for leap year, then you are a human calculator, but even that’s not entirely accurate due to the leap second. And even accounting for that, it’s only an approximation that there are 365.2422 days in a year.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Answer This Honestly

What question can you never honestly answer yes to?

Are you asleep? (or dead, or conscious, or being silent).

Posted in Riddles

Choose Your Own Death

A prisoner was brought before the King to be executed. The King was in a peppy mood and asked the prisoner how he would like to die. The prisoner told him and the King laughed heartily. The prisoner was released and sent on his way, alive.

What did the prisoner say?

He asked to die of old age.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Made Of Wood But Can’t Be Sawed

What is made of wood but can’t be sawed?

Sawdust. It’s still made up of wood, but a saw will be of no use.

Posted in Riddles

Find The Hidden Cities

Wallace died a wealthy, if somewhat odd, man without any living relatives. He left his money in four different cities for the first four people who could find it. The only clue he left was this poem:

Do not go solo,
Pairs up with a friend,
Though I hasten to add,
I’ll avenge my end.

What are the four cities?

Anagrams of four cities can be found in the poem.

Oslo (solo)
Paris (pairs)
Athens (hasten)
Geneva (avenge)

Posted in Brain Teasers

What Has Roots Nobody Sees?

What has roots that nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
Yet it never grows?

A mountain (from Tolkien)

Posted in Riddles

Scrambled Auctioned

What are two other words (anagrams) that can be made from the letters in “auctioned”?

1. Cautioned
2. Education

Posted in Brain Teasers

Thin, Bold, Sick And Cold

One thin, one bold,
One sick, one cold.
The earth we span,
To prey upon man.

Who are we?

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Posted in Riddles

The Secret of the Chalk Emerald

A dear old relative passed away recently and her family gathered for the reading of the will. The final item was the Chalk Emerald, a priceless gem. The will bequeathed it to whoever determined where it was hidden. The only clue was it was in a cylinder surrounded by a thousand squares. A young lass of barely six immediately piped up saying she knew where it was hidden and she was correct. Where was the hiding place?

In a roll of toilet paper.

Mark suggested two alternative solutions: A cylindrical chimney or a well, the squares being the bricks. Although most bricks aren’t square, it’s conceivable I guess.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Word Pairs to Create a New Word

One letter can be used to replace the first letter of each word pair below to create two new English words. The new letters can then be combined to spell a word. What is that word?

MAIL ____ PINK
CART ____ SAID
GRID ____ RIMLESS
LINK ____ BOUND
ROWED ____ RIPPLE

SMART

SAIL – SINK
MART – MAID
ARID – AIMLESS
RINK – ROUND
TOWED – TIPPLE

Posted in Brain Teasers