Five Three Two

What is the answer to the last equation?

5 3 2 = 151012
9 2 4 = 183662
8 6 3 = 482466
5 4 5 = 202504
7 2 5 = ?

10000 × (x × y) + 100 × (x × z) + transpose_digits(x × y + y × z)

transpose_digits() just swaps the digits

Posted in Brain Teasers

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

Colored As A Maiden Tweaked

Colored as a maiden tweaked,
Time was naught when I began;
Through the garden I was sneaked,
I alone am the fall of man.

What am I?

An apple.

Posted in Riddles

The Japanese IQ Test

Supposedly this is given as a test in Japan. I have no idea if that’s accurate.

There are 8 people who have to cross the river on a raft.

1. Policeman
2. Thief
3. Father
4. Boy 1
5. Boy 2
6. Mother
7. Girl 1
8. Girl 2

The rules are:

Only two people can cross at a time.
Only the adults can operate the raft.
The father can’t be with the girls unless the mother is there.
The mother can’t be with the boys unless the father is there.
The thief can’t remain with anyone unless the policeman is present.

How do you get them all across?

Instead of working it out by hand, here’s a flash version.

Click on the circle to start. Click on a person to put them on the raft and click on the lever to make the raft cross.

Here’s how I did it in 17 steps. Can you do it faster? Let me know in the comments.

1. Policeman (P)
2. Thief (T)
3. Father (F)
4. Boy 1 (B1)
5. Boy 2 (B2)
6. Mother (M)
7. Girl 1 (G1)
8. Girl 2 (G2)

1. P, T →
2. ← P

3. P, B1 →
4. ← P T

5. F, B2 →
6. ← F

7. F, M →
8. ← M

9. P, T →
10. ← F

11. M, F →
12. ← M

13. M, G1 →
14. ← P T

15. P, G2 →
16. ← P

17. P, T →

Posted in Brain Teasers

Four of Us In Your Field

Four of us are in your field
But our differences keep us at yield

First, a one that is no fool
Though he resembles a gardener’s tool

Next, one difficult to split in two
And a girl once had one as big as her shoe

Then, to the mind, one’s a lovely bonder
And truancy makes it grow fonder

Last, a stem connecting dots of three
Knowing all this, what are we?

The four suits in a deck of standard playing cards

The Spade is a gardener’s tool.

The Diamond is the hardest gem to break. “Little Girl and Queen” is a Mother Goose rhyme, in which the Queen gave the girl a large diamond for picking the Queen some roses.

The Heart bonds with the mind to form love. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

The Club, or Clover, is three dots connected around a stem.

Posted in Riddles

Two Tons

If you had a ton of feathers and a ton of stones which would be heavier?

Neither. A ton is a ton, no matter what it’s made up of, and they both weigh a ton.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Travel a Lot Meet Both Rich and Poor

I travel a lot and meet both the rich and the poor, but nobody knows where I am going next. I’m invisible but you can see what I do. Who or what am I?

Wind (or anything blown by the wind). It moves all over, reaches the rich and the poor equally and no one knows exactly which way the next gust of wind will blow. You can’t see the wind, but you can see what it blows, like leaves or dust.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

What One One One Represents

What do the following numerals represent?

11111121113122223222

The number of syllables in the numbers from one to twenty.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Sounds Nothing Like the Word

When pronounced, it sounds nothing like the word.

A sentence.

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

Find The Country Names

How many country names can you find in the following statements?

Don’t reach in a crack in the rocks, there might be snakes in there.
While I was on the highway called the Alcan, a daily occurrence was car breakdowns.
The top social class, as defined by many, is the upper-upper.

Three.

1. China (reaCH IN A)
2. Canada (alCAN A DAily)
3. Peru (upPER-Upper)

Posted in Brain Teasers