Riddle:
Two schoolgirls were traveling from the city to a dacha (summer cottage) on an electric train.
"I notice," one of the girls said "that the dacha trains coming in the opposite direction pass us every 5 minutes. What do you think-how many dacha trains arrive in the city in an hour, given equal speeds in both directions?"
"Twelve, of course," the other girl answered, "because 60 divided by 5 equals 12."
The first girl did not agree. What do you think?
Answer: If the girls had been on a standing train, the first girl's calculations would have been correct, but their train was moving. It took 5 minutes to meet a second train, but then it took the second train 5 more minutes to reach where the girls met the first train. So the time between trains is 10 minutes, not 5, and only 6 trains per hour arrive in the city.
Riddle:
Can you combine plus signs and five 2's to get 28? Can you combine plus signs and eight 8's to get 1,000?
Answer: 22+2+2+2=28; 888+88+8+8+8=1,000
Riddle:
Janie's friends were chipping in to buy her a wedding shower present. At first, 10 friends chipped in, but 2 of them dropped out. Each of the 8 had to chip in another dollar to bring the amount back up. How much money did they plan to collect?
Answer: $40 (10 at $4, or 8 at $5).
Riddle:
A nonstop train leaves Moscow for Leningrad at 60 mph. Another nonstop train leaves Leningrad for Moscow at 40 mph. How far apart are the trains 1 hour before they pass each other?
Answer: 100 miles (60+40)
Riddle:
One-fourth of the population of a newly discovered planet has 4 legs while the rest have two legs. There are 60 legs in total. What is the population of the newly discovered planet?
Answer: 4 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 10 legs and 4 inhabitants. Repeat this six times to use up all 60 legs and you end up with 24 total inhabitants.
Riddle:
Three matches are sitting on a table. Without adding another make for three matches four. You are not allowed to break any of the matches. How can this be done?
Answer: Shape the 3 matches into a roman numeral four.
Riddle:
Place three matches on a table. Tell a friend to add two more matches to make eight. How can this be done?
Answer: Add two matches to make a roman numeral eight.
Riddle:
A man ordered a length of rope by telephone from his nearest hardware shop. But when he went to collect the rope, he found that the assistant had miswritten the order by interchanging feet and inches. As a result of this, the rope was only 30 percent of the length that the man wanted. What length did he want and what length did he get?
Answer: The man ordered 9 feet 2 inches of rope, and got 2 feet 9 inches.
Riddle:
Three point one four, one five nine two six five, three five eight nine... What am I?
Answer: Pi - π.
Riddle:
A boy has as many sisters as brothers, but each sister has only half as many sisters as brothers.
How many brothers and sisters are there in the family?
Answer: Four brothers and three sisters.
Riddle:
What is significant about 3661 seconds past midnight on 1st January 2001?
Answer: The time and date will be 01:01:01 on 01/01/01.
Riddle:
If two's company and three's a crowd, what are four and five?
Answer: Four and five is nine.
Riddle:
I am a place, in a state. I am an answer to a math problem. The math problem is: To get a cube, you multiply something by 6. What do you multiply by?
Answer: You Times Square!
Riddle:
How can you measure nine minutes with have two hourglasses, one four minute and one seven minute?
Answer: Turn over both hourglasses at once. When the four-minute hourglass runs out, turn it over. When the seven-minute hourglass runs out, turn it over. When the four-minute timer runs out this time (eight minutes have elapsed), the seven-minute hourglass has been running for one minute. Now turn over the seven minute timer back over. When the timer runs out, nine minutes have elapsed.
Riddle:
Tara has $29.00 dollars. She bought 4 coloring books that cost $3.00 each, 4 boxes of Crayola crayons that cost $2.00 each. She spends the rest of her money on markers.
How much money did she spend on markers?
Answer: She spent $9.00 on markers.
Riddle:
Tom volunteered to be the chief organizer for the world's tether ball championships. There were 657 contestants from around the world. The tournament was set up whereby the winner would advance and the loser would be eliminated. Since there was an odd number of participants, the initial pairing leaves one player out. That player gets a bye and automatically advances to the next round. How many matches will Tom have to schedule to determine the tether ball champion?
Answer: 656 matches will be needed.
Riddle:
A frog fell into a 12-foot-deep well. He could jump 3 feet, but every time he jumped 3 feet, he fell back 2 feet. How many times did he have to jump to get out of the well?
Answer: 10. On the tenth jump he cleared the edge of the well and thus did not fall back two feet.
Riddle:
You have 14 brown socks, 14 blue socks and 14 black socks in your sock drawer. How many socks must you remove (without looking to be sure) to have a matched pair?
Answer: Four. You will have a pair of one color or another.
Riddle:
David is throwing Robert a surprise birthday party but he has to stay within his budget. He spent half of his money plus $2.00 on the cake. Half of what he had left plus $2.00 was spent on balloons and streamers. Then he spent half of what he had left plus $1.00 on candy. Now he is out of money, how much did he start with?
Answer: This one is best solved working backwards, the last part David spent half of what was left plus $1.00 on candy and then was out of money. That means he must have spent $2.00 on Candy as $1.00 was half of what he had using the same logic backwards: $2.00 on candy $6.00 on Balloons and Streamers $12.00 on the cake Total of $20.00.
Riddle:
A certain number has three digits. The sum of the three digits equals 36 times this number. Seven times the left digit plus 9 is equal to 5 times the sum of the two other digits. 8 times the second digit minus 9 is equal to the sum of the first and third.
What is the number?
Answer: This one is fairly easy - 324 is the answer.
