Riddles
- Sherlock Holmes and the Broken Window
One snowy night, Sherlock Holmes was in his house sitting by a fire. All of a sudden a snowball came crashing through his window, breaking it. Holmes got up and looked out the window just in time to see three neighborhood kids who were brothers run around a corner. Their names were John Crimson, Mark Crimson and Paul Crimson. The next day Holmes got a note on his door that read "? Crimson. He broke your window." Which of the three Crimson brothers should Sherlock Holmes question about the incident?
- A man is looking at a picture of a man on the wall and states: Brothers and sisters I have none, but this man's father is my father's son. Who is the man in the picture in relation to the man looking at the picture?
- I was visiting a friend one evening and remembered that he had three daughters. I asked him how old they were. "The product of their ages is 72," he answered. Quizzically, I asked, "Is there anything else you can tell me?" "Yes," he replied, "the sum of their ages is equal to the number of my house." I stepped outside to see what the house number was. Upon returning inside, I said to my host, "I'm sorry, but I still can't figure out their ages." He responded apologetically, "I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that my oldest daughter likes strawberry shortcake." With this information, I was able to determine all of their ages. How old is each daughter? You have enough information to solve the puzzle.
- Wheelbarrow Battle
Two men working at a construction site were up for a challenge, and they were pretty mad at each other. Finally, at lunch break, they confronted one another. One man, obviously stronger, said "See that wheelbarrow? I’m willin’ to bet $100 (that’s all I have in my wallet here) that anything you can wheel to that cone and back, I can wheel twice as far. Do we have a bet?"
The other man, too dignified to decline, shook his hand, but he had a plan formulating. He looked at the objects lying around: a pile of 400 bricks, a steel beam, the 10 men that had gathered around to watch, and a stack of ten bags of concrete mix; he thought for a while, and then finalized his plan.
"All right," he said, and revealed his object.
That night, the strong man went home thoroughly teased and $100 poorer. What was the weaker man’s object?
- A boat has a ladder that has six rungs. Each rung is one foot apart. The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12 inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour.
When the tide is at its highest, how many rungs are under water?
- How far can a dog run into the forest?
- Tom's mother has three children. One is named April, one is named May. What is the third one named?
- What seven-letter word has hundreds of letters in it?
- In a small cabin in the woods, two men lay dead. The cabin itself is not burned, but the forest all around is burned to cinders. How did the men die?
- You are given eight coins and told that one of them is counterfeit. The counterfeit one is slightly heavier than the other seven. Otherwise, the coins look identical. Using a simple balance scale, can you determine which coin is counterfeit using the scale only twice?