the BIG riddle topic [part VII]

Lucid Lounge
21

Some might remember these kind of riddles :smile:

Two local Berkeley professors bump into each other on Telegraph Ave. They haven’t seen each other since Vietnam.

Prof 1: hey! how have you been?
Prof 2: great! i got married and i have three daughters now
Prof 1: really? how old are they?
Prof 2: well, the product of their ages is 72, and the sum of their ages is the same as the number on that building over there…
Prof 1: right, ok … oh wait … hmm, i still don’t know
Prof 2: oh sorry, the oldest one just started to play the piano
Prof 1: wonderful! my oldest is the same age!

How old are the daughters?

22

Heh, strange thread for my first post, but I just had to try and answer the question.

I would say they are 2, 4 and 9, and the number on the building is 15, too. :wink:

It was confusing at first, it makes it sound like it has something to do with playing the piano. Assuming that the number on the building is an integer, then 2, 4 and 9 is one of the combinations which make up 72, They could be 18, 4 and 1, but that just doesn’t sound likely, or they could be 18 and twins of 2 … maybe the vietnam war was close when this was made up. Or maybe there aren’t 22 numbers on Telegraph Ave. I wouldn’t know :smile:

23

Nope they’re not 2, 4, 9 :smile:

But you’re looking in the right direction.

24

I just wrote down every combination. In the end, there are 2 sets of ages which add up to the same thing:

2,6,6
3,3,8.

If the oldest one started playing the piano, then it cant be 2,6,6 because there are 2 “oldest ones”.

Therefore, the answer is 3, 3, and 8.

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Congrats m2k961 :happy:

26

… you have far too much time on your hands.

I don’t have any riddles at the moment. I’ll come back when I get a good one.

27

[b][color=indigo]I don’t like really hard riddles, and I don’t like mathematical riddles, as I have no brain to solve them with…I’ll give you one that’s just so easy, to fill in time till someone with a braincell handy brings a good onee lol

It’s more powerful than God.
It’s more evil than the devil.
The poor have it.
The rich need it.
If you eat it, you’ll die.
What am I?[/color][/b]

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The answer I guess would have to be nothing. I suspect the GRY riddle has already been asked so:

Amy has the same number of brothers as sisters. Her brother Andy has twice as many sisters as brothers. How many children are in the family?

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[b][color=indigo]3, 2 girls 1 boy…i love puzzles like that!

Maybe I shouldn’t have answered, I don’t know what to do now!

Do another one![/color][/b]

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I don’t know if there is a newer riddle topic other than this one so I decided to post here…

3 princes wanted the to marry the princess of a certain king. The king eventually decided on a competition to know which of them will take his daughter’s hand in marriage. The king wanted his daughter to marry the cleverest prince in the group thus he established the contest to find out who was the smartest.

The 3 princes are led into the center of a room and are placed in such a way that they form a triangle. They all faced each other so that one can see easily both his fellow competitors.

Afterwards, they were blindfolded by the king. Then, the king placed a small pointed hat on each of their heads. Each of the hats were colored white. He then proceeded to tell them what they are needed to do.

“Upon your heads is a hat that could either be colored white or colored black. Once my servants take of your blindfolds, raise your hand if you see any one of you having white hat upon his head.”

“The object of this contest is to figure out what color your own hat is. If you know the color of your own hat, simply tell me its color and how you figured it out.”

When the blindfolds were removed, all the princes’ hands immediately went up. After about 5 minutes of remaining that way, one prince told the king that he knew the color of his hat. He said that his hat’s color was white. He was of course correct.

How did the prince find out?

NOTES:
The princes cannot tell where the other princes is looking at since the triangle formation allowed them to see each other without needing to turn their heads.

The 2 princes who lost are not stupid. They are still relatively smart… at least as smart as an average man.

The prince who answered correctly was of course, smarter than the other 2.

The prince solved the dilemma purely by analysis and not in any cheap way.

They cannot see their own hats. Its on top of their heads after all.

If that’s too hard… here a much easier one.

The beginning of everything,
The end of time and space.
The beginning of every end,
The end of every place…

What is it?

(OOPS…I posted the answer to the horse riddle without knowing that it has been answered before… but the riddle gave me another idea for another riddle. To those who managed to glimpse my post before I deleted it, you’ll know the answer to this riddle since the answer I gave in my post responded to 2 variations of the riddle, TZerOOO variation and mine. So if you know the answer because you saw that post… please don’t tell :content: )

A horse is tied to a 15 feet rope which in turn is tied to a post. A bail of hay is 25 feet away from him… but he can still manage to eat it from it.

How can this be?

(Have fun answering them… If you manage to answer the first one, I’ll be very impressed :content: )

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Ok, i have a guess to the first one and answers that i think are right for the other two

guesses: there is a mirror in the room (or he sees reflections in glasses/eyes of the other 2)
or he asks someone what colour his hat is
or he takes the hat off and looks at the colour
or he reasons that the king would have made it fair so he gave them all white hats
or he peeked through the blindfold
can you tell me if any of these are close?

Answers to the other two
:e and the post is not attached to anything but the rope so it can move or more likely, the post is between him and the bail and since he can move 30m along the diameter and the post is within 15m of the post, he can reach the bail

32

He probably found out all the hats were white.

If there had been only one white hat, that person would have seen only black hats, and would be able to figure it out.

If there had been one black hat, one of the others would probably already have spotted it before him. Since nobody reacted, everybody was probably seeing the same thing :cool:

He could also have seen a black hat, and since everybody could see white hats, he must have known there had to be more than one white!

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To alex:
None of it are close.

You’re absolutely right about the 3rd riddle…The post could simply be between him and the hay.

Well, that’s one down

To Siiw:
Maybe you read over it but…the king put white hats on all of their heads and of course, they did not know the colors of any of the hats.

You’re second answer is almost there… maybe if you elaborated.^^

I can’t believe nobody has tried to solve the second one… Its the easiest by far.

34

Oh, i did answer the second riddle but it wasn’t too obvious in my post it was where i said “:e and …”

Did the guy with the hat thingknow 100% that his hat was white? But anyway, if his was black then everyone still would have put their hands up because they all see someone with a white hat.

35

Sorry, thought it was just a smiley…

He didn’t know 100% since he never saw his own hat. But the probability according to his analysis was very, very high so he still answered it. What was his analysis?

Yup, you’re right that even if his was black, then all of them would still raise their hands. Still, Siiw was getting warm…

36

Yay, i think i get it now…
If there had been 2 black hats, someone would have known that theirs was white and said white.
If there had been 1 black hat, and he was wearing it, then the others would know that they have a white hat on because the other person with a white hat would still have their hand up and since they didn’t say that they had a white hat, he is pretty sure that he has a white hat.

37

:cheer:

And we have a winner! :content:

You solve the riddle alex… and since all have been solved. I’m going to post another one. I am impressed… :grin:

(You know, no one in RL ever answered that riddle when I asked them…)

One more cheer!

:cheer:

38

This is a very ,very ,very ,very easy one (I can’t think of any right now so…It might have been asked already too):

A bow and an arrow cost 21 dollars at the same time. The bow costs 20 more dollars than the arrow. What are their individual prices?

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alex: That was what i was trying to say!

/me slaps her english

and the bow costs 20,50 and the arrows 0,50 :cool:

40

Oh!!!

Here’s a hard one…(It might take some materials on your part, like a chess board.)

Imagine a square that is divided into 64 squares like a chess board…You must find 8 squares that are neither in the same row nor column nor diagional.

If you answered it, put your answer in the format of algebraic chess notation (a1, b4, g6, etc.)

If I recall, there are 90+ possible answers for this…

HINT: It’ll really help if you have a chess board since you can use the 8 pawns as place holders to find the answer.