Riddles and Brain Teasers

Fifty Quarters

You have fifty quarters on the table in front of you. You are blindfolded and cannot discern whether a coin is heads up or tails up by feeling it. You are told that x coins are heads up, where 0 < x < 50. You are asked to separate the coins into two piles in such a way that the number of heads up coins in both piles is the same at the end. You may flip any coin over as many times as you want.

How can you do it?

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Take x coins, flip all of them and put them in one pile. The rest of the coins form the second pile.

Posted in Brain Teasers

A Cloth Poorly Dyed

A cloth poorly dyed
And an early morning sky
How are they the same?

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Their color both change easily.

Posted in Riddles

Seven Letters and Something You Eat

I have seven letters and am something you eat. My only anagram can help your pain. If you remove my first 2 letters I wear things down. Removing my first 3 letters is an adjective and removing my first 4 letters leaves a measure of time.

What am I?

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Sausage. You eat sausage, assuage is the only single-word anagram and provides relief from pain. Usage wears things down, sage is an adjective and age is a measure of time.

Posted in Riddles

From Scraps to Pants

A tailor can make a pair of pants from the scraps left over from sewing up five pairs of pants. If he has twenty-five scraps, how many pairs of pants can he make?

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Six pairs of pants. He can make five initially, but once he’s done making five pairs of pants, he’ll have five remaining sets of scraps, meaning he can make an additional pair of pants, totaling six.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Ripped From My Mother’s Womb

Ripped from my mother’s womb,
Beaten and burned,
I become a blood thirsty killer.
What am I?

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Iron ore.

Posted in Riddles

You Melted My Ice

A full glass of water with a single ice cube sits on a table. When the ice has completely melted, will the level of the water have increased, decreased or remain unchanged?

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The water level remains unchanged because the ice cube displaces its own weight. If you’re not convinced, read Archimedes’ Principle, which states that any floating object displaces its own weight of fluid. Still not convinced? Here are a few more sources.