I thought it would be nice to have a topic for riddles from all over the world. Having so many different types of people from countries all over the world, I thought people might want to share their riddles, mind twisters, puzzles, etc. Anything to stimulate the mind.
I will start with two.
If it takes 3 men, 3 days, to dig 3 holes. How many men and how many days will it take to dig a half a hole?
[no tricks to this one, just reason and logic] - you have three switches on a wall. There is a room on the other side of the wall with a light bulb in it. There is a door to go into this room. There are no windows to this room, nor on the door. With only going into the room once how do you find out which of the three switches turns the light bulb on?
What are the answers?
Have you got any good riddles?
there is no such thing as half a hole. a hole is a hole is a hole.
turn the left switch on for 4 hours. turn the middle one on and walk into the room. If the bulb is on and hot, it is the left switch. if the bulb is on and cold, it is the middle switch. if the bulb is off, it is the right switch.
Here are my riddles:
a) how far can a dog run into a forest?
b) It greater than God and more evil than the Devil. The poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it, you die. What is it?
c)As I was walking to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives. The seven wives had seven sacks, the seven sacks had seven cats. How many objects were going to St.Ives?
d) A Boeing 747 aeroplane leaves Gatwick airport at 15:00 on April 2nd and is due to arrive at Geneva airport at 18:00. The plane suffers extreme turbulence exactly halfway between its departure location and its destination. Where did they bury the survivors?
e) A man walks up to you and says “everything i say to you is a lie.” Is he telling the truth or lying?
f) I have two coins in my hand in total they come to 25p. One of them is not a 5p piece. Please remember this. What are the coins?
g) What can go up a chimney down, but cannot go down a chimney up?
h) A woman has 7 children. Half of them are boys. How is this possible?
i) How many pairs of animal did Moses take into the Ark?
j) A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a drink of water. The barman goes to get the drink and comes back and points a gun at the man’s head. The man thanks the barman and leaves. What has happened?
i have answers to some of these:
a) halaf way through. after that he’s running out of the forest.
c) 1. Yourself
d) The cemetry - surely!!
e) this is both at the same time - depends are trustworthy the man is!
f) the one that isn’t a 5p is a 20p and the other is a 20p.
i) dudes got the hic-cups! the gun was a welcome scare!
Here’s a classic riddle.
In the morning it has 4 legs. at noon it has 2 legs. and by evening it has 3 legs. What is it?
aha sounds like the riddle Oedipus solves to save the city of Troy from the curse of the sphynx. The answer is man, as he walks on all fours when in the morning of his life (as a baby), then on two feet, then when he is old he uses a walking stick, walking with three ‘legs’…ahem, i think i’d better get my coat after that shameless display of classical knowledge…
b) It greater than God and more evil than the Devil. The poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it, you die. What is it?
NOTHING
d) A Boeing 747 aeroplane leaves Gatwick airport at 15:00 on April 2nd and is due to arrive at Geneva airport at 18:00. The plane suffers extreme turbulence exactly halfway between its departure location and its destination. Where did they bury the survivors?
YOU DON’T BURY SURVIVORS YA MUG
e) A man walks up to you and says “everything i say to you is a lie.” Is he telling the truth or lying?
if he’s telling the truth then he’s lying. This is impossible. If he’s lying then not everything he says to you is a lie but this could be so he’s lying.
here’s my riddle:
Three bears come to stay at an inn. They pay £10 each to Goldilocks’ dad = £30. Goldilocks’ dad thinks that that’s a bit steep so he gives Goldilocks £5 to give back to them. She can’t be arsed to get the change to give them £1.66 each so she gives each bear £1 and keeps £2. So the bears have now paid £9 each (£10 - £1) and Goldilocks has £2. 3 x £9 = £27 and £27 + £2 = £29! But we started off with £30. Who has the missing £1???
The mathematical fallacy occurs when you assume that Goldilocks giving the bears £3 in total and keeping £2 is the same as if she had only been given £3 by her Dad to return to the bears.
If she was given only £3 by her Dad and she split it between the bears then they would indeed have only paid £9 each. £30 - £3 = £27 £27/3 = £9. However, Goldilocks was not given £3, she was given £5. So you have to minus the £5 first. £30 - £5 = £25. £25/£3 = £8.33 That is how much the bears should have paid each (but Goldilocks was lazy!). So instead she returned each bear £1. £25 + (£1 x 3) = £28 and kept £2 for herself. £28 + £2 = £30. voila.
No doubt there is some wonderful mathematical formula or logic that explains this more eloquently.
a) middle
b) nothing
c) one
d) you don’t bury survivors
e) He’s telling the truth. If he was could only lie about everything he could not say that everything he says is a lie because it would be true.
f) One is an twenty and the ‘other’ is a 5p.
g) Smoke
j) Man has hic-ups.
Another riddle:
A man gets up in the morning and gets ready for work. He lives in an apartment building on the 23rd floor. He gets in the elevator and presses ‘1’ to go to the first floor. He gets in his car and goes to work. When he gets back from work he parks his car and gets into the elevator. He presses ‘8’ and goes to the 8th floor. On the 8th floor he takes the stair case up to the 23rd floor. Why? (It’s not for excercise)
riddles annoy me. because there is always strictly one answer to them, even though many are possible. they’re flatly against diversity of opinion, or perspective. i am ideologically opposed to riddles.
take the last one for example. maybe the man wanted to post a letter to his friend roy on the 8th. floor. maybe he can only see his car clearly from the 8th. floor, and went to have a look to see if he’d parked correctly, or that it hasn’t been set on fire (it is a high-rise building!).
maybe the elevator doesn’t go further than 8 on the even side. or maybe it is excercise, but he convinces himself it is not, in an act of self-denial.
he sounds like quite an orderly man, so maybe walking those 15 flights ensures he reaches the flat at the right time, he doesn’t like that 6 minute wait to watch the 6 'o clock news. maybe he just felt like it.
i don’t mean for people to go off riddles (not that they will). i just can’t cope with the uncertainty
In reply to Pangloss,
you are right about the uncertainty, but that is the whole point, is to come to the best conclusion possible with the information provided. There is something I should have added to my prior riddle…HE DOES THIS EVERY DAY. This should clear up some things. I apologize for causing your frustration and if I hadn’t forgotten to add this maybe you would not have gotten annoyed. I understand your annoyance but I don’t think that riddles are annoying nor do I think that there is only one answer. If you are just reading from a book and posting the riddles than I don’t think you or anyone else will get much from this subject. But the point here, I guess I should have specified even further in my first post, is that people can talk about the riddles and come up with many different answers, and not to just post and answer, but to make correlations, jokes, or other commentaire on the riddles being posted. It is true that in books riddles always have one answer, they never say “this is the answer, but some others are also possible”, but they do usually say at the beginning that the point is to get the best possible answer.
e) A man walks up to you and says “everything i say to you is a lie.” Is he telling the truth or lying?
The answer is neither, it is a paradox. If he is lying he is telling the truth which means he is lying. If he is telling the truth it means he is lying which means he is telling the truth. et cetera et cetera et cetera.
g) What can go up a chimney down, but cannot go down a chimney up?
smoke is a good one, but the answer is an umbrella.
And finally: h) A woman has 7 children. Half of them are boys. How is this possible?
They are all boys. Half of them are boys and the other half are too!
I’m either being very very supid indeed or I’m right. I think it’s only a paradox if he says, “This is a lie.” Then if he’s telling the truth, then he’s not lying so it breaks down. If he’s lying, then he’s telling the truth so it breaks down.
But you said he says, “everything i say to you is a lie.” Now if that’s a lie then it doesn’t mean that everything he says is true. It means that not everything he says is a lie. Some things are lies, some things aren’t. Therefore this could be a lie but it needn’t be. It doesn’t break down. He’s lying and what is says is a lie.
Actually I’m quite confused now. Others…what do you think?
Ben,
I don’t think the guy saying everything I say to you is a lie, is a paradox. If one looks at it logically, one must assume that if everything he says is a lie, than he wouldn’t say “everything I say to you is a lie” because it would be the truth. Since it is impossible for anyone to lie about EVERYTHING, so it would only make sense that the person is lying in this present period of time to the person with whom he is talking.
About the umbrella, I don’t agree that it is a better answer than smoke. If you pull hard enough even an umbrella will come down a chimney, broken no doubt.
The 7 children, half being boys really stumped me, I liked that one.
Here is a little puzzle…
You have the following numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9. Each number can only be used once. The box above contains 9 squares, enough to fit all the numbers. You must arrange the numbers inside the box in such a way that all the columns and the rows will add upto 15.
Actually I’m quite confused now. Others…what do you think?