Three Letter Word Completion

What three letter word can complete the below words?

B___
D___
M___ET
P___ING
SH___

Ark, which produces: bark, dark, market, parking, shark.

Posted in Brain Teasers

It’s True I Bring Serenity

It’s true I bring serenity,
And hang around the stars
But yet I live in misery;
You’ll find me behind bars
With thieves and villains I consort
In prison I’ll be found
But I would never go to court,
Unless there’s more than one

The letter “s”.

Posted in Riddles

Even Seven

How can you make seven even?

Remove the letter “s”, turning it into the word “even”.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Three Digits in a Row

On a regular 12-hour digital clock how many times would the same three digits in a row be displayed (e.g. 1:11, 11:12, 12:22) in one day?

34 times. These 17 instances will be visible twice in a 24 hour period.

1:11
2:22
3:33
4:44
5:55
10:00
11:10
11:11
11:12
11:13
11:14
11:15
11:16
11:17
11:18
11:19
12:22

Posted in Brain Teasers

True, False or Confused?

Which of the following statements are true and which are false?

1. Only one of the statements is false.
2. Exactly two of the statements are false.
3. Only three of the statements are false.
4. Exactly four of the statements are false.
5. All five of these statements are false.

The only true statement is #4 and the rest are false.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Wear Black

What does this represent?

Wear
Black

Black underwear.

Posted in Riddles

Balance Twelve Eggs

Suppose you have twelve eggs and a balance scale. All of the eggs are identical except for one whose only difference is its weight. Using the scale only three times, determine which egg is the odd egg out and whether it is heavier or lighter than the other eggs.

Weigh four against four. If they’re equal, weigh three of them against three you haven’t weighed. If they balance too, weigh the last remaining egg against any of the others to see if it is lighter or heavier. If the three suspects are heavier, weigh one of them against another and the one that goes down is it. If they balance the remaining suspect is heavy. Use the same process if they’re lighter. If the initial four vs four don’t balance, weigh two heavy eggs and a light egg against one heavy egg, one light one and a known normal egg. If they balance weigh the remaining two light eggs against each other. If they balance the unweighed heavy egg is the odd one out. If the side with two heavy eggs goes down weigh them against each other. If they balance it is the light egg on the other side. If the other side goes down it is either because of one heavy egg on that side or because the one light egg on the other side is lighter than the rest. Weigh one of them against a known normal egg to determine which is true.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Chimadena

What does this represent?

chimadena

Made in china. The word “made” is wedged between the word “china” (chi-na)

Posted in Brain Teasers
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Tends To Overlook

I am something everybody tends to overlook, no matter how careful they are. What am I?

Your nose.

Posted in Riddles

The Ages of a Prince and Princess

A princess is as old as the prince will be when the princess is twice the age that the prince was when the princess’s age was half the sum of their present ages.

What are their ages?

This one took a while to figure out and there are numerous valid ways of finding the answer.

Here is the solution I came up with

I created the following table from the riddle:

 CurrentFuturePast
Princessx2z(x+y)/2
Princeyxz

I then created three equations, since the difference in their age will always be the same.
d = the difference in ages
x – y = d
2z – x = d
x/2 + y/2 – z = d

I then created a matrix and solved it using row reduction.

xyz
1-10d
-102d
.5.5-1d

It reduced to:

xyz
1004d
0103d
0015d/2

This means that you can pick any difference you want (an even one presumably because you want integer ages).
Princess age: 4d
Prince age: 3d

Ages that work

PrincessPrince
43
86
1612
2418
3224
4030
4836
5642
6448
7254
8060

To see other solutions check out the comments from when I posted this on my blog.

Posted in Brain Teasers