Answer This Honestly

What question can you never honestly answer yes to?

Are you asleep? (or dead, or conscious, or being silent).

Posted in Riddles

Rude Otto

Hannah, Otto, Todd and Eve were walking down the street. Suddenly Otto rudely told Todd he was an outsider and didn’t belong. What made Todd different?

Todd is not a palindrome.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Loud Linda

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which is more probable?

1) Linda is a bank teller.
2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

1) Linda is a bank teller.

Most people guess number two, but the probability of two events occurring together is always less than or equal to the probability of either one occurring alone. This problem is known as the Conjunction Fallacy.

Posted in Riddles

Has Teeth But Can’t Bite

What has teeth but can’t bite?

A comb. Other inanimate objects with teeth like a saw, zipper or a gear can “bite” you. Many people can affirm from painful experience in regards to zippers and saws, and the unfortunate factory worker who is missing a finger can attest to gears. It’s a rare event that anyone would be injured by a comb.

Another grim option is a dead animal or person.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

Lennie’s List of Names

Lennie was cleaning up some old papers in his office and found a list with the following names:

Washington
Jefferson
Lincoln
Hamilton
Jackson
Grant

The last name on the list was mostly worn away and he couldn’t make it out. What was the last name and why?

Franklin. It’s a list of the men on U.S. currency, $1, $2, $5, $10, $20 and $50. The $100 bill has Franklin. And an interesting tidbit is that Hamilton, along with Franklin, are the only two men in the list who did not serve as president.

Posted in Riddles

You Twirl My Body

You twirl my body but I keep my head up high.
When I go in I keep things tight.

What am I?

A screw.

Posted in Riddles
Tagged with

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

What Letter Comes Next MAMJJASO

What letter comes next in this sequence?

M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, ____

N. The letter represent the first letters of the months of the year, starting with March. N is for November, and of course D would be the next one.

Posted in Riddles

Sever Bones and Marrow

My first is in wield, sever bones and marrow.
My second is in blade, forged in cold steel.
My third is in arbalest, and also in arrows.
My fourth is in power, plunged through a shield.
My fifth is in honor, and also in vows
My last will put an end to it all.

What am I?

Weapon

Posted in Riddles

Hard Boiled Kiwi Bird Eggs

If you can hard boil a Kiwi bird egg in 20 minutes, how long would it take to hard boil four Kiwi bird eggs?
Note: Kiwi birds are about the size of a chicken, but they lay eggs that are close to the size of an Ostrich egg. So one would assume they must take a long time to hard boil.

20 minutes. You can boil them all at once in a large pot.

Posted in Brain Teasers