Reading in the Dark

Jim and his wife Patty were sitting in bed together one evening while a thunderstorm raged outside. After a bolt of lightning followed by a loud clap of thunder, the lights went out. Jim stopped reading and went to sleep, but Patty continued reading in the dark. How did she do it?

Darkness

Patty is blind and was reading a Braille book so she didn’t need the light to begin with. Of course this also meant she didn’t know Jim snuck downstairs to get some cookies, but we’ll just keep that quiet.

Posted in Brain Teasers

You’re Halfway There

You’re standing 11 feet away from a doorway and with each step you move halfway to the doorway. How many steps will it take for you to get to the doorway?

Technically, the answer is infinity. If you keep going halfway, you’ll never actually make it to the doorway.

But in practice, after 10 steps you’ll be 1/8th of an inch to the doorway and anyone behind you would say to stop being a baby and take a real step through the doorway already.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Right Combination of Letters and Values

The letters A through H can be assigned the following values to make all the equations true. Find the right combination of letter values.

Values: 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 14, 16, 21

C + F = G
A + C = F
B + G = D
B + E = H
D + F = H

A = 1
B = 7
C = 4
D = 16
E = 14
F = 5
G = 9
H = 21

Posted in Brain Teasers

September 10th In Britain

What happened on September 10th, 1752 in Britain?

Nothing happened that day. It didn’t exist due to the transition from a Julian calendar to Gregorian.

Read more here.

Posted in Riddles

Sits in the Corner

I sit in a corner and travel around the world. What am I?

A stamp.

This is nearly a duplicate of Lives in the Corner.

Posted in Riddles

The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville shaves all men living in Seville.
No man living in Seville is allowed to shave himself.
The Barber of Seville lives in Seville.

Who shaves the Barber of Seville?

Nobody. The Barber of Seville is a woman. Female barbers are rare, but they exist.

And for more fun with barbers, check out the Barber paradox.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Pot

What does this represent?

Pot OOOOOOOO

Potatoes (Pot + 8 Os)

Posted in Brain Teasers
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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

What Has Roots Nobody Sees?

What has roots that nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
Yet it never grows?

A mountain (from Tolkien)

Posted in Riddles

A Most Unusual Paragraph

This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it. You still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching.

The letter “e” is the most common letter in the English language, yet it never appears in the entire paragraph.

Posted in Brain Teasers