Ted and The Vicious Dog

Ted was lost while driving around the country and saw a house. He parked under a nearby tree and started toward the house. As soon as he got out of his car a huge dog lunged at him from the opposite side of the tree. Fortunately the dog was chained and Ted managed to stay out of reach. Finding no one home at the house, Ted returned to his car, but as he approached the dog lunged at him again. The chain was so long the snarling animal could reach both car doors. How did Ted escape the dog and get back into his car?

Ted moved slowly around the tree keeping just out of the dog’s reach. The animal followed, winding its chain around the tree until it was too short to reach Ted’s car

Posted in Brain Teasers

First is Twice in Apple

My first is twice in apple but not once in tart.
My second is in liver but not in heart.
My third is in giant and also in ghost.
Whole I’m best, when I am roast.
What am I?

You are a pig.

Posted in Riddles

A Shorter Word

What word becomes shorter when you add letters to it?

Short. Adding ‘er’ to short gives you shorter.

Posted in Riddles

I’ll Always Smile Back

If you drop me I’m sure to crack but give me a smile and I’ll always smile back

A mirror.

Posted in Riddles

The Truck and the Plane

A delivery truck from the post office is sent to the airport to meet a cargo plane at its planned arrival time. The plane lands ahead of schedule and its contents are brought toward the post office by bicycle. After a half hour, the bicycle meets the truck and the mail is transferred.

The truck returns from the post office 20 minutes early. How early did the plane arrive? (Assume all transactions are instantaneous)

The delivery truck arrived back 20 minutes early, so it would have taken 20 minutes to go from where it met the bicycle to get to the airport and back. Therefore, the bicycle and truck met when the truck was 10 minutes from the airport. Adding those 10 minutes to the 30 minutes the truck had already driven to meet the bicycle means the plane arrived 40 minutes ahead of schedule.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Guide and Scraping Along

Guided, I am scraping along,
leaving behind my snow white dust
against that which I am scraping,
for when I am scraping, I must.

Chalk

By Sef Daystrom

Posted in Riddles

Winning at Wimbledon

As a result of temporary magical powers, you have made it to the Wimbledon finals and are playing Roger Federer for all the marbles. However, your powers cannot last the whole match. What score do you want it to be when they disappear, to maximize your chances of hanging on for a win?

It sounds obvious that you should ask to be ahead two sets to love (it takes 3 out of 5 sets to win
the men’s), and in the third set, ahead 5-0 in games and 40-love in the sixth game. (Probably you
want to be serving, but if your serve is like mine, you might prefer Roger to be serving the sixth
game down 0-40 so that you can pray for a double fault.)

Not so fast! These solutions give you essentially 3 chances to get lucky and win, but you can
get six chances—with three services by you and three by Roger. You still want to be up two sets
to none, but let the game score be 6-6 in the third set and 6-0—in your favor, of course—in the
tiebreaker.

Credit goes to Peter Winkler for creating this.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Bank Wait Times

Suppose a small bank has one teller and customer transactions take 10 minutes on average. With 5.8 customers arriving per hour, what is the expected wait time? What would it be if you added a second teller?

With one teller, customers will wait nearly five hours on average. But adding a second teller makes the wait go down to 3 minutes.

Thanks to John D. Cook for this one.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The More You Run

The more you run, the harder I am to catch. What am I?

Your breath.

Posted in Riddles

I See Much But Change Little

I see much but change little,
I am firm, irresolute,
Powerful but gentle,
I can rip apart mountains,
Yet be moved by gentle stirrings,
I am valued and wasted,
I am life itself,
And I give life to others.

What am I?

A tree. A tall one can see long distances but don’t change much. They are strong and powerful, and the roots of a tree can slowly tear apart a mountain. The gentle stirrings of the wind can blow their branches and leaves. Trees are valuable as they provide wood and paper, but they are also wasted. And lastly, trees, like all plants, provide us with life-giving oxygen.

Posted in Riddles