A Ship To Ride the Greatest Waves

I am a ship that can be made to ride the greatest waves. I am not built by objects, but built by minds. What am I?

Friendship.

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Stand Take Mine

What does this sentence represent?

Stand   Take  Mine  Taking
  I     You    To     My

I understand you undertake to undermine my undertaking.

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An Apparition

Two people were in a house. No one came in or went out, but then there were three people. What happened?

The two people were a husband and an expectant wife, who gave birth to her baby.

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A Ring But No Finger

What has a ring but no finger?

A telephone or alarm.

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At Least One is a Boy

A couple has two children. At least one of them is a boy. Assuming the probability of having a boy or girl is 50%, what is the probability that both children are boys?

If you answered 1/2, you’re not without comrades, but the generally accepted answer by statisticians (though not without debate) is 1/3. This is because there are four possible combinations: boy-boy, boy-girl, girl-boy and girl-girl. Since we are told one of the children is a boy (but we don’t know if it’s the first or second child), we can rule out the girl-girl combination, leaving three remaining options. Only one out of 3 is boy-boy, so we get a 1/3 chance.

This is a well-known problem known as the Boy or Girl paradox. The other variation is this brain teaser.

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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.

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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

I Drift Forever With The Current

I drift forever with the current
down these long canals they’ve made
Tame, yet wild, I run elusive
Multitasking to your aid.
Before I came, the world was darker
Colder, sometimes, rougher, true
But though I might make living easy,
I’m good at killing people too.

Electricity (or lightning).

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Divisible By One To Ten

What is the smallest number that is evenly divisible by 1 through 10?

2520.

2520/1 = 2520
2520/2 = 1260
2520/3 = 840
2520/4 = 630
2520/5 = 504
2520/6 = 420
2520/7 = 360
2520/8 = 315
2520/9 = 280
2520/10 = 252

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Buying Chickens

You must buy 100 chickens for exactly $100, and purchase at least one chicken from each store. The first store charges 5 cents/chicken, the second charges $1/chicken and the third charges $5/chicken. How many chickens should you buy from each store?

80 from store 1 = $4
1 from store 2 = $1
19 from store 3 = $95

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