Mario’s Racing Grandma

Mario is testing out a new car at the racetrack. His grandmother took it for a mile lap and averaged 30mph. How fast does Mario have to drive in the second lap to average 60mph for the two miles?

90mph is an alluring answer, but it’s impossible. At 90mph the second lap would take 40 seconds. If Grannie’s first lap at 30mph took 2 minutes, traveling 2 miles in 2 minutes and 40 seconds is an average speed of 45mph. Traveling an average speed of 60mph for 2 miles would take 2 minutes and since the grandma’s lap took all of those 2 minutes, even if Mario could break the sound barrier he wouldn’t be able to average 60mph.

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Precious Thing to Most

A precious thing to most,
In order to take it,
You must already have it.

What is it?

Life.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

Ten Times Two is 0218

10 × 2 = 0218
20 × 2 = 1421
30 × 2 = 1632
40 × 2 = ?

2840.

This makes the first column the start of the Fibonacci series: 0, 1, 1, 2.
The second column is the even numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8
The third column is counting up by ones: 1, 2, 3, 4
And the last column is the answer in the first row in reverse: 8, 1, 2, 0.

Don’t ask what 50 × 2 equals. I have no idea. :)

Thanks to Jim for helping with the solution.

Posted in Brain Teasers
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2, 3, 6

What number comes next in this series?

2 3 6 7 1 9 4 5 ___

8. The numbers are in reverse alphabetical order.

Two, three, six, seven, one, nine, four, five, eight.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Can Ruin a Lucky Run

I can ruin a lucky run,
Or create an item of wealth,
But for man, woman or child,
I’ll always steal your health.

What am I?

Die. The roll of a die can ruin a game of chance. A die (i.e. mold) is used to create new coins and so far at least, we all die.

Posted in Riddles
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Fred’s Packing Job

Fred was almost done packing for the day, with five packages left. Unfortunately, Fred dropped the labels and had no idea which label went to which package. What is the probability that Fred managed to correctly label exactly four of the five packages?

Zero. If Fred had correctly labeled four packages, the fifth label would belong to the fifth package and all packages would be correctly labeled. Therefore it is impossible to mislabel exactly four packages.

Posted in Brain Teasers

All Words From Nine Letters to One

What 9-letter word can have a letter removed to make a new word and repeat the process until a single letter remains?

startling
starting
staring
string
sting
sing
sin
in
i

Posted in Brain Teasers

At Night They Come

At night they come without being fetched. By day they are lost without being stolen. What are they?

The stars.

Posted in Riddles

Show Your Work

Solve this one carefully!

230 – 220 x 0.5 = ?

You probably won’t believe it, but the answer is 5! How can this be true?

The answer is 120, and 5! = 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 120

Credit to John May for this one.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Six Letter Word

What 6-letter word has the same pair of letters in spots 1 and 5, a different pair in spots 2 and 6 and contains a ‘u’ in between?

church, delude, inulin or recure

Posted in Brain Teasers