Reading Hexadecimal

How many people can read hexadecimal if only you and dead people can read it?

57006

The trick is that the word “dead” represents a number in hexadecimal. That number in base 10 is 57005, and adding one more to include yourself gives you: 57005 + 1 = 57006.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Subtracting Ten From A Hundred

How many times can you subtract 10 from 100?

Only once. The next time you’d be subtracting 10 from 90.

Posted in Brain Teasers

False Positive HIV Test

Imagine an HIV test that is 95% accurate (false positive rate of 5%) and around 2% of the tested population is infected with HIV. What is the probability that you actually have HIV when your test comes back positive?

29%

To read more about this, see the False Positive Paradox page on Wikipedia.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Beginning of the End

I am the beginning of the end, and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. What am I?

The letter e. End, timE, spacE, Every placE.

Posted in Riddles

Three Children’s Names

Tom’s mother has three children. One is named April, one is named May. What is the third one named?

Tom

Posted in Brain Teasers

Black Coat Rebus

What does this represent?

 black
-------
 coat

Black overcoat.

Posted in Riddles
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Sweet or Bitter and Sometimes Free

I often fall from up above,
Sweet or bitter and sometimes free,
Use me to declare your love,
I’m worth more than most any.

An apple. They fall off trees and can be sweet or bitter depending on the type of apple. Most people buy apples, but you can get a free one if you have an apple tree. In olden days apples were used to throw at a person you loved, and in 2013 the company, Apple, pushed past Exxon Mobile to have the largest market capitalization in the United States.

Posted in Riddles

A House With No Doors

I am in a house with no doors. There are people inside but give no reply. Who am I?

A fish. A fish bowl or aquarium is the fish’s house and the people inside are the decorative divers that offer no reply (one might ask how the fish knows, given that they aren’t a talkative bunch themselves).

Posted in Riddles

The Answer Isn’t 6

What goes in place of the question mark?

1 3 5
2 4 ?

(It’s not 6)

R. It’s a representation of a stick shift, where 1-5 are gears and R represents reverse.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Flora Not Fauna

I am flora, not fauna,
I am foliage, not trees,
I am shrubbery, not grass,

What am I?

A bush.

Posted in Riddles