What Three Digit Number

What 3 digit number has a tens digit that is 5 more than the ones digit and a hundreds digit that is 8 less than the tens digit?

194

Posted in Brain Teasers

Painting a Bigger Room

A painter needed 3 days to paint a room. How long would it take him, working at the same rate, to paint a room twice as large (twice the width and twice the height)?

12 days because the walls would be four times as big as the first room.

If the walls are 10 ft x 10 ft, then each wall has 100 square feet. Adding the four walls makes 400 square feet to paint. Doubling the width and height of the walls to 20 ft x 20 ft means each wall is now 400 square feet, for a total of 1600 square feet to paint. 1600 ft is four times 400 square feet, thus if it took him 3 days to paint 400 square feet, it will take 12 days (or four times as much) to paint 1600 square feet.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Paula and Quincy

Paula had four times the money that Quincy had, but after Paula gave Quincy $33, Quincy had 3 times as much as Paula.

How much did they each start with?

Paula had $48 and Quincy had $12.

If Q is the amount Quincy had, then 3(4Q – 33) = Q + 33

Solved, Q = 12.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Mislabeled Boxes of Marbles

Three closed boxes have either white marbles, black marbles or both, and they are labeled white, black and both. However, you’re told that each of the labels are wrong. You may reach into one of the boxes and pull out only one marble. Which box should you remove a marble from to determine the contents of all three boxes?

The one labeled both. Since you know it’s labeled incorrectly, it must have all black marbles or all white marbles. After you determine what it contains, you can identify the other two boxes by the process of elimination.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Crawl on the Earth, Rise on Pillar

I crawl on the earth and rise on a pillar.

What am I?

A shadow.

Posted in Riddles

Black When Clean and White When Dirty

What is black when it’s clean and white when it’s dirty?

A chalkboard (or blackboard). It’s solid black when clean, and as you write on it with white chalk it becomes dirty.

Posted in Riddles

What Work is Never Finished?

What work can one never finish?

An autobiography. Unless you’re writing it in your death bed I suppose, but even then, how will you be able to record the time of death?

Posted in Riddles

Not Many People Understand Me

My first three letters stores things. Not many people understand me. What am I?

Binary. Bin is a storage container and binary just 1s and 0s.

Posted in Riddles
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I Lack Much Reason, But Often Rhyme

I lack much reason, but often rhyme,
And require logic to pass the time,
To get the words to tell your kin,
Look for clues that lie within,
Though all are different, they act the same,
The answer is practically in the name.

What am I?

A riddle.

Posted in Riddles

Four Colored Balls in Gym Class

Four different-colored balls are being used in a gym class activity – blue, red, yellow and orange. Each student must hold two different-colored balls, but no two students can have the same two colors (for example, only one student can hold the blue and red ball).

How many students can play the game?

Six. If you prefer math, you can calculate it as 4 combination 2

4! / (2!)^2
24 / 4 = 6

Or you can work it out manually:

1. Blue Red
2. Blue Yellow
3. Blue Orange
4. Red Yellow
5. Red Orange
6. Yellow Orange

Posted in Brain Teasers