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

False Positive HIV Test

Imagine an HIV test that is 95% accurate (false positive rate of 5%) and around 2% of the tested population is infected with HIV. What is the probability that you actually have HIV when your test comes back positive?

29%

To read more about this, see the False Positive Paradox page on Wikipedia.

Posted in Brain Teasers

As I went over London Bridge

As I went over London Bridge
I met my sister Jenny
I broke her neck and drank her blood
And left her standing empty

A bottle of gin.

Posted in Riddles

What Is The Longest Word With Horizontal Symmetry

A word with horizontal symmetry is one whose letters are a mirror image of themselves. If you drew a horizontal line across the word and folded it over, it would overlap on itself. For example, EXCEEDED and ICEBOX have horizontal symmetry, but VERTICAL and SIMPLE do not.

What is the longest word with horizontal symmetry?

CHECKBOOK.

Posted in Brain Teasers

PINE Rebus

 P
INE

Pine cone (pine in the shape of a cone).

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

Not Many People Understand Me

My first three letters stores things. Not many people understand me. What am I?

Binary. Bin is a storage container and binary just 1s and 0s.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

An Alphabetic Phrase

What phrase can be made using the following letters?

A B C D E F G I

Big-faced.

I wouldn’t suggest calling anyone that, unless you want a big red nose from being punched.

Posted in Brain Teasers

It Scares Animals

A seven letter word that has T as the second letter, A as the fourth letter and S as the sixth letter. Girls love it, boys use it, parents hate it and it scares animals. Hint: It’s a German word.

A persistent puzzle solver will discover that no English word satisfies the letter requirements, to say nothing of the loving, using, hating or being scared requirements. I found three German words that work:

1) strafst
2) strapse
3) strauss

1 and 3 mean punish and bouquet respectively. I couldn’t find a definition for strapse. Punish is the likely answer. Girls love to punish boys, boys use punishment as well, a good parent hates to use punishment and animals are scared of it. I don’t know of any animals that are scared of a bouquet, though a bouquet fits as something girls love and boys use.

Posted in Riddles

Brothers And Sisters Of Leopold

If Leopold had one more sister he would have twice as many sisters as brothers.
If he had one more brother he would have the same number of each.

How many brothers and sisters does Leopold have?

Three sisters and two brothers.

Posted in Brain Teasers

If You Look You Cannot See Me

If you look you cannot see me. If you see me you cannot see anything else. I can make anything you want happen, but later everything goes back to normal.

What am I?

Your imagination.

Posted in Riddles