What are the Things?

In one day, 6 things.
In one week, 4 things.
In one month, 2 things.
In one year, 1 thing.

What are the things?

Odd numbers.

In a day, there are 6 odd hours: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 (ignoring 24-hour time).

In a week, there are 4 odd-numbered days: 1, 3, 5, 7

In a month, there are 2 odd weeks: 1, 3 (no month has 5 full weeks)

And in a year’s 12 months, there is 1 odd number: 1 (the 1 of 12).

I readily agree the year one is a stretch, but I didn’t write it :)

Posted in Riddles

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

Never Was, Always To Be

I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will. And yet I am the confidence of all, To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball. What am I?

Tomorrow or the future.

Posted in Riddles

Hear a Lot, Say a Lot

I hear a lot
And I say a lot
Few ever look for me
And even fewer ever hear me
I hide in plain sight
Whether its day or night
To help is all I want
But most like to bend me
And as if they had a wand
Never again shall anyone find me
They do this to control
Without realizing the high price of a soul
But when I’m least expected
They’d rather be protected
For there shall be no place to hide
What am I?

The truth.

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Soft And Fragile Is My Skin

Soft and fragile is my skin
I get my growth in mud
I’m dangerous as much as pretty
For if not careful, I draw blood.

A thorn.

Posted in Riddles

What is the Five Digit Number?

What 5-digit number satisfies the following requirements?

1. No zeroes
2. First two digits are the same
3. Fourth digit is twice the first
4. Last digit is twice the third
5. Sum of all digits is 18

33264.

There are several ways of solving this. One way is to represent each spot with a letter, A – E.

Then you have these equations:

A = B
D = 2 * A
E = 2 * C
A + B + C + D + E = 18

By simplifying, you get:

4 * A + 3 * C = 18

Plug in values for A and C to find that A = 3 C = 2.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Reordered Mistake

What reordered word is a mistake?

Errored, which is an anagram of reorder.

Posted in Riddles

Next in the Sequence

Here is a series of numbers. What is the next number in the sequence?

1
11
21
1211
111221
312211

13112221

The next number in the series counts the previous numbers. Thus the first number is 1, which is one 1, or 11. To describe 11, you have two 1’s, or 21. Now you have one 2 and one 1, so the next number is 1211. The solution is to continue describing the previous number using only numbers.

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A Medication of Three Parts

I’m a medication with three parts. The first part is the surname of someone who has been a Mary and a Maria. The second part is a vital organ and the last is plentiful in the ocean.

What am I?

Andrews Liver Salts, an antacid. Julie Andrews played the role of Mary Poppins in the movie of the same name, and Maria in the Sound of Music. It’s tough to live without a liver and a taste of the ocean always includes a touch of salt.

Posted in Riddles

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