Riddle: An officer wishing to arrange his men in a solid square found by his first arrangement that he had 39 men left over. He then started increasing the number of men on a side by one, but found that 50 additional men would be needed to complete a new square.
How many men did the officer have?
Answer: The officer had 1975 men. When he formed a square measuring 44 by 44, he had 39 men over. When he tried to form a square 45 x 45, he was 50 men short.
Riddle: Lauren and Alice are talking long distance on the phone. Lauren is in an East-Coast US state which borders the Atlantic Ocean, and Alice is in a West-Coast state which borders the Pacific Ocean. Lauren asks Alice: "What time is it?" Alice replies and Lauren says: "That's really odd. It's the same time here!" How can this be?
Answer: Alice is in Eastern Oregon (in Mountain time) and Lauren is in Western Florida (in Central time). It is the night that daylight-savings time changes back to standard time any time after 1:00 and before 2:00 AM.
Riddle: There are 4 borthers 3 of them want to buy a television which is 30 pounds. Each of them pay 10 pound each they give the money to the fourth brother and asked him to go into town and buy the television. When he got there the man said there was 5 pounds off so the fourth brother took the 5 pound and television and left. He decided to make some money out of this so he took 2 pounds and give the other 3 pounds to his brothers. So the 3 brothers only payed 9 pounds each. 3 times 9 is 27 were is the last pound?
Riddle: There is a certain family with both girl and boy children. Each of the boys has the same number of brothers as he has sisters. Each of the girls has twice as many brothers as she has sisters. How many boys and girls are there in this family?
Riddle: Mr. Grumper grumbles about bad time-keeping trains like everybody else. On one particular morning he was justified, though. The train left on time for the one hour journey and it arrived 5 minutes late. However, Mr. Grumper's watch showed it to be 3 minutes early, so he adjusted his watch by putting it forward 3 minutes. His watch kept time during the day, and on the return journey in the evening the train started on time, according to his watch, and arrived on time, according to the station clock. If the train traveled 25 percent faster on the return journey than it did on the morning journey, was the station clock fast or slow, and by how much?
Answer: The station clock is 3 minutes fast. The morning journey took 65 minutes, and the evening journey therefore took 52 minutes, and the train arrived 57 minutes after it should have left, that is, 3 minutes early.
Riddle: A man had a bar of lead that weighed 40 lbs., and he divided it into four pieces in such a way as to allow him to weigh any number of pounds from one to forty. What are the weights of the four pieces?
Answer: 1, 3, 9, 27, are the weights of the four pieces.
Riddle: As defendants, we deny all involvement in the unscrupulous dealings which have come to light in the recent government investigation. What country name is hidden in the previous sentence?