Words With Many Faces

My letters become three faces,
One has gone to far away places,
Another sets a standard high,
The third can never be a guy.

What are the three words?

Sailed, ideals and ladies.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Scrambled Auctioned

What are two other words (anagrams) that can be made from the letters in “auctioned”?

1. Cautioned
2. Education

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Up a Drainpipe Down but Not Down a Drainpipe Up

What can go up a drainpipe down but not down a drainpipe up?

An umbrella.

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Favorite Pet is a Fish

I died and came back to life. My blood is not easily able to go through my body. My favorite pet is a fish. Who am I?

A shark. Sharks experience tonic immobility, also known as apparent death, where they appear to have died. Blood does not easily flow through their bodies, forcing sharks to swim continuously to circulate their blood. Lastly, sharks have pet fish called Remora (sometimes called suckerfish). They feed on parasites on the sharks and leftovers, and they use the shark as transport and protection.

A big thanks to Saravana for answering this.

Posted in Riddles

Embarrassing List

A woman gave a man a list of things she needed to buy at the store. The man gave the list back to the woman and she turned red with embarrassment. Why?

The man was a checkout clerk at the grocery store. The list was for items to get at a lingerie store.

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Two Backbones

I have two backbones and thousands of ribs and I stretch across the land. What am I?

Train tracks.

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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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A Third As Old

Barry is 67 years old. His daughter is 43. When was she 1/3 as old as him?

31 years ago.

Here’s one way to solve it.

Let x = how many years ago

We get this equation: 67 – x = 3 × (43 – x)

Solving for x gives us 31.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Ages of a Prince and Princess

A princess is as old as the prince will be when the princess is twice the age that the prince was when the princess’s age was half the sum of their present ages.

What are their ages?

This one took a while to figure out and there are numerous valid ways of finding the answer.

Here is the solution I came up with

I created the following table from the riddle:

 CurrentFuturePast
Princessx2z(x+y)/2
Princeyxz

I then created three equations, since the difference in their age will always be the same.
d = the difference in ages
x – y = d
2z – x = d
x/2 + y/2 – z = d

I then created a matrix and solved it using row reduction.

xyz
1-10d
-102d
.5.5-1d

It reduced to:

xyz
1004d
0103d
0015d/2

This means that you can pick any difference you want (an even one presumably because you want integer ages).
Princess age: 4d
Prince age: 3d

Ages that work

PrincessPrince
43
86
1612
2418
3224
4030
4836
5642
6448
7254
8060

To see other solutions check out the comments from when I posted this on my blog.

Posted in Brain Teasers

What is the center of gravity?

What is the center of gravity?

V. The letter ‘v’ is the center of the word gravity.

Posted in Riddles