Special Sequence

What is special about the following sequence of numbers?

8 5 4 9 1 7 6 10 3 2 0

The numbers are in alphabetical order.

8 = eight
5 = five
4 = four
9 = nine
1 = one
7 = seven
6 = six
10 = ten
3 = three
2 = two
0 = zero

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Three Items for $100

Bill buys three items at the store for exactly $100. The second item costs half as much as the first item, and the third item is half as much as the second.

How much did each one cost?

First: $57.14
Second: $28.57
Third: $14.29

Posted in Brain Teasers

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 Old Gray Surgeon

A man and his son had a terrible car accident and were rushed to the hospital. The man died on the way, but the son was still barely alive. When they arrived, an old gray surgeon was called in to operate. Upon seeing the young boy, the surgeon said, “I can’t operate – this is my son.”

How is this possible?

The surgeon was the boy’s mother.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Choose Your Own Death

A prisoner was brought before the King to be executed. The King was in a peppy mood and asked the prisoner how he would like to die. The prisoner told him and the King laughed heartily. The prisoner was released and sent on his way, alive.

What did the prisoner say?

He asked to die of old age.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Seven Porky Pigs

How can you put 21 pigs in 4 pigpens and still have an odd number of pigs in each pen?

Put seven pigs in the first three pens and arrange the fourth pen to contain the other three pens.

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Thanks, You’re Fired

A man is leaving on a business trip and stops by his office on the way to the airport. The night watchman stops him and says, “Sir, don’t take that flight. I had a dream last night that your plane would crash and everyone would die!” The business man cancels his trip and sure enough, the plane crashes, killing all the passengers. The man gives his watchman a $10,000 reward for saving his life, then fires him. Why?

Because his night watchman was sleeping on the job.

Posted in Brain Teasers

What Looks Like Food

What looks like food, tastes like food, smells like food, sounds like food when you cook it, is grown in dirt like food, fills up your stomach like food, but is not food?

A poisonous mushroom. Since some types of mushrooms are edible, it can be very hard to distinguish between a safe mushroom and one that will kill you. Food is defined as a substance consumed to provide nutrition, therefore a poisonous mushroom that kills you doesn’t qualify as food, even though it shares all of the traits of a regular mushroom.

Other valid answers include anything that’s edible, resembles food, but is poisonous.

Posted in Riddles

Moved Like the Tide

Dear Brother,
In the past, men believed
that it moved like the tide.
Till its movement desists,
we will always be this.

Blood.

By Sef Daystrom

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