Before Mount Everest

Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain in the world?

Still Mount Everest. Just because it wasn’t discovered didn’t make it any smaller.

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Mixed Animals for $100

At the market you can buy a cow for $10, a pig for $1 and 8 hens for $1. How many animals would you need to buy to get 100 mixed animals for exactly $100?

7 cows, 21 pigs and 72 hens. The trick to this is finding the combination of cows and hens with the same cost and quantity since pigs are already equal. The magic combination is 7 cows and 72 hens, giving you 79 animals that cost $79 ($70 + $9). Then you just add 21 pigs to get to 100 animals.

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A Circled of Joined Hands

You dance in a circle of joined hands,
And though they spin away I can always see your face,
In the world, no matter where I am,
One look at you and I know my place.

What am I?

A clock.

An analogue clock is a circle, and the hands of a clock are joined at the middle.
The hands can point away from you, but the clock face is always visible.
No matter where you are in the world, you can probably find a clock.
“One look at you and I know my place…in time!”

Thanks to Helena for creating this and sending it in.

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You Are My Brother

You are my brother but I am not your brother. Who am I?

Your sister.

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Rotating Coins Around Coins

You have two coins of equal size on a table, situated end to end vertically. If you roll the top coin around the bottom coin until it returns to its original position, how many times will it have rotated?

Twice. See this video for more details.

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Death By Marbles

You are a prisoner sentenced to death. The Emperor offers you a chance to live by playing a simple game. He gives you 50 black marbles, 50 white marbles and 2 empty bowls and instructs you to divide the 100 marbles into the two bowls. You can divide them however you want as long as all the marbles are in the bowls. You will be blindfolded and the bowls and marbles will be thoroughly mixed. You will then choose a single marble from one of the bowls. If the marble is white, you live. Black and you will be put to death.

How do you divide the marbles up so that you have the greatest probability of choosing a white marble?

Place one white marble in one bowl and place the rest of the marbles in the other bowl (49 whites, and 50 blacks).

This way you begin with a 50/50 chance of choosing the bowl with one white marble and living. Even if you choose the other bowl, you still have an almost 50% chance of picking one of the 49 white marbles. There are no guarantees in life, but this gives you the best change of surviving.

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O S C Sequence

O, S, C, Y, S, B, T, D, ?

What is the next letter in the sequence?

E. Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light.

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Archaeologist Laughed At

An archaeologist publicizes his find, a coin marked 649 BC, but is laughed at by his peers. Why?

No coins were ever marked BC because the BC / AD dating system wasn’t even devised until 525 AD. And it wasn’t widely used until after 800 AD.

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To Make In a Burning House

I am the best thing to make if you’re in a burning house. And you’d better make me quickly before the fire’s too hot to take.

Haste.  You need to make haste to get out of the burning house as soon as possible.

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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.

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