The worlds first riddle!

"How many artists are necessary to paint twenty-four models on twenty-four canvases in twenty hours."

One picasso, one degas and one toulouse-lautrec
Total 2.5 artist. ;-)

2.5 painters will do, but you can't have half a painter, so 3 painters are needed.

whim

"How long will it take for the bells to signal twelve o'clock (midday) ?"

5/6 *11 = 9.16 seconds

whim

"2.5 painters will do, but you can't have half a painter, so 3 painters are needed."

(2.5 * 8 = 20), it is possible to reduce the number of painters by the same number of times (24 / 8 = 3).


"5/6 *11 = 9.16 seconds"

Oh dear, no. The answer is in whole seconds. Keep going Colonel Whim.
Hint: think of the ?'silent intermissions'

Silent intermissions? There are 11 intervals.
If the answer is a whole number it must be 11 seconds, but doesn't ringing take time too?

Strange.

Whim

"If the answer is a whole number it must be 11 seconds, but doesn't ringing take time too?"

11 seconds. The 5 seconds needed to signal six o'clock are the 5 silent intermissions between rings. At twelve, the 12 rings are interleaved by 11 silent intermissions, which need 11 seconds to be executed.

As is the case with gliders, it is quite possible to 'outrun the wind' with a surfboard.
However, several issues must be addressed:

1. The meaning of 'there is no wind' is referring to the wind relative to the shore. Therefore, there is 3 kph wind felt by the windsurfer drifting with the river, or relative to the water. If 'there is no wind' means relative to the water, nothing can be done.

2. The sail, as well as the surfboard/sailor, are extremely well suited for the low wind speeds. The sail is very large and has a perfect 'wing' profile, the surfboard is quite large, and the surfer is an expert for low-wind racing.

3. When the sail is raised, the orientation of the windsurfer is at a right angle to the water flow (virtual wind), and tilted slightly 'downwind'. Raising the sail causes acceleration in the mentioned direction. Increasing speed causes change in the 'virtual wind' direction (draw a vector with 3kph component in x direction, and speed of windsurf in y direction) so it is coming at an angle steeper and steeper, causing more drag. Drag balances the accelerating force of the x component of the wind, and depending on the mentioned factors (plus many others) the balance is achieved at a certain speed. Now this speed can be, relative to the shore, greater than 3 kph.
4. In any case, the speed relative to the water increases, as well as manouvering becomes possible, giving poor Relative an option to come to the shore and have a beer in the shade.

Cheers, Relative.

"There is no wind. Should he raise the sail in order to go faster."

A) Yes.

Congratulations Relative in even finding this question. You are quite right in all that you say.

(The mouse is still in the pool. Should it make a dash?)
A mouse was chased by a cat. Just as the cat was about to catch it, the mouse jumped into a swimming pool, which was round in shape. The cat circled around the pool, waiting for the mouse to come out of water. Knowing that the cat could run 2.5 times faster than the mouse could swim, do you think the mouse could get out of the pool safely


After being captured by the tribe of the forest, the three explorers were taken to the tribe's chief, who declared that the tribe needed a successor of great wisdom. He showed the captives five skullcaps, three of which were red and the remaining two were green. He commanded the three to line up with their faces toward the wall. On each he placed a red skullcap.

"Now", the chief said, "turn around and look at each other. Whoever can tell me, with a logical explanation, the colour of the skullcap you are wearing will be granted freedom."

The three turned around, looked at each other, and after a long pause one of them said, "I don't know." Two natives impaled him on their spears.

After another pause, the second prisoner stuttered, "I don't know." The two natives threw him into a fire pit.

Immediately, the third man turned a cartwheel, announced, "My skullcap is red," and proceeded to explain.

Amidst the applause of the gathered tribesmen, the chief awarded the explorer vice-chiefdom of the tribe for his wisdom

How did the explorer know that his skullcap was red


As Dante was reaching River Ztyx on his way back from the Underworld, he was expecting to hitch a ride back on Charon's boat, and then go to pay a visit in Purgatory. As things went, Charon turned out to be a rather nasty fellow. Instead of giving Dante a nice, hassle-free trip back across the damned river, he called his three best buddies. Dante looked at them. The monsters were pretty ugly overall.

"You see, Dante, nothing is free in life - or death - except suffering," said Charon. "My three friends here, although they all look repulsive, are rather peculiar: one of them always tells the truth, another one always lies, and the last one is a bit of a lunatic: sometimes it tells the truth and sometimes it lies. You have a total of three questions you can ask them to find out which one is which. I'll take you on the other side of the Ztyx if and only if you can tell me, without a shadow of a doubt, which one tells the truth, which one is the liar, and which one is the lunatic one. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you - silly me - they can only answer yes or no... isn't life great?"

What three questions will enable Dante to cross the River Ztyx

Notes:

Each question is directed to, and answered by, only one creature.
The creatures themselves know who is the truth-teller, who is the liar, and who is the lunatic.
The solution does not rely on asking them questions that they are not able to answer due to uncertainty. eg, asking the liar or the truth-teller to predict whether the lunatic will say yes or no to a given question.

hm, this caps are tricky
First - let's say that first one eliminated rushed a bit. He doesn't see two greens and he is unable to know, and he "surrenders".
Second one then knows that two of them don't have green hats, but, he's problem is that he is too quick in surrending. Because, he's "suicidal" quiting gives clue for a third guy - because if third guy would have green hat, then second should know that he has red. Of course, they were actually both able to guess that they have reds but the second guy was not that smart I guess, so he quits, and third guy can be sure that he has red.

Thinking in moves:
a) 1st guy does not see two greens, 2nd guy has red, therefore I can have red or green
b) if I would have green, then 2nd would guess that his cap is red, because in other case 1st guy would know the answer
c) so, I don't have green
d) I have red.

"hm, this caps are tricky"
Here we go again! Can anyone point out the obvious in reply to MyO

now you make me curious, so point it out yourself

You are right, yet again. Congrats.

At first, any explorer could have guessed the colour of his own skullcap only if the other two wore green skullcaps. Unfortunately, the first explorer admits to not being able to work it out, and is killed.

Then, with two people left it is possible for either explorer to know if he wears a red skullcap only if the other wears green. In that case, he could reason, "The other person wears green, so if I also have a green skullcap, then the first man would have deduced that he was wearing a red skullcap, since there are only two green caps. Therefore my skullcap is, without doubt, red." Of course, this is not the case. Stupidly, the second explorer admits he does not know and is killed as punishment.

After seeing that the other two could not deduce their colours, and believing in their deductive capabilities, the third prisoner was then sure he was wearing a red skullcap.




There is a five-digit number having digits 1-9, no two digits being identical. Two are prime numbers, two are square numbers, and one is neither. The third digit is twice the fifth, the fourth is six greater than the second and the last is three less than the first.

What is the number

"What is the number?"

73894


whim

73894

Whim, you are on fire. However, all good things must come to an end. I am confident that these riddles will remain unsolved.

A Croatian barber shaves all the men in his town who do not shave themselves.

Where is the Paradox



How many ways are there of arranging a standard pack of 52 playing cards? Now take each way as one second, how long in time would it take


On planet noom, the inhabitants are robots with various numbers of arms. The robots are grouped into tribes according to the numbers of arms they have so that in any tribe, no member has a different number of arms to the other members. Each tribe follows the same fertility ritual before bed each night, a ritual that also reveals the number of members in a tribe. In the ritual, each arm of a male links with an arm of a female, no male-female pair of robots linking more than once.

The minimum number of robots required to link all arms once only is the number belonging to that tribe. Now one night, the Caky tribe cornered half of the Usty tribe and despite being outnumbered two to one, unscrewed one arm from each, there being an equal number of male and female victims.

However, the Caky tribe were extremely poor at arithmetic and had failed to realise that they needed 24 times their actual haul of spare arms in order that the number of links their members could then make, each with the same number of extra arms, was half the maximum number of links the Usty tribe could then make. How many Cakies and Usties were there

Good luck, you will need it!

"Where is the Paradox ?"


If he shaves all men in his town, he must shave himself, but the statement says that he shaves only men who do NOT shave themselves. So he does not shave himself, and so on.

There's the paradox.

Whim

"If he shaves all men in his town, he must shave himself, but the statement says that he shaves only men who do NOT shave themselves. So he does not shave himself, and so on."

Whim, you are a Wizard.


"This is terrible," the customs officer shouted. "It's impossible to count all these people and animals that keep moving around constantly. I can't count the same number twice! There are zebras, lions, giraffes, horses, elephants, rhinos, tigers, cheetas, flamingos, storks, doves and hummingbirds! I can't keep them under control, I just can't!"

"Count the heads, officer," the circus owner advised. "Every animal has got a head and, as the documentation shows, I can count 112 of them."

"Count the legs, officer, that's the way," the clown said. "There are 310 legs; if you subtract the number of heads from the number of legs, you'll be able to tell how many bipeds and how many four-legged animals there are."

"Wait a second, I've just counted the legs just now, and there's 297 of them," the cook said.

"This is driving me mad," the officer muttered. "One of them tells me there are 112 heads, another one talks about 310 legs, and that mentally-disturbed cook tells me that the number of legs is only 297. How many animals, including humans, are there?

To be more precise, how many bipeds and how many four-legged animals are there And is the cook completely mad

What do you mean, you cant understand the questions?
The difficult puzzles just got impossible.


As Miss Arwig entered the interview room, her four inquisitors sat behind the oak table watching her. Arwig mentally numbered them from 1-4 left to right and noted the following facts. The pipe smoker sat immediately to the right of Mr Blowtorch. Mr Crumpet did not smoke cigarettes. Neither Mr Crumpet nor Mr Drivel were third.

The cigarette smoket sat immediately to the left of Mr Amoeba. Mr Crumpet was not the cigar smoker. The cigar smoker sat immediately to the left of the cigarette smoker. The cigar smoker was neither second nor third. Assuming no interrogator smoked two different items, can you find the name and smoking habit for each position


Seven members of the Hollywood Theatre Company were being cast in a post-Chaucer staging (4,6,2,7). The payment for playing the characters followed a ranking system as follows.

Hanks was playing a character ranked 3 places below Cage's and 10 places above Foster's. Kidman's character was 3 positions below Everett's and 11 places below Stone's. Olivier's character was 9 places above Foster's and 5 places above Stone's. What was the play (5,2) and who was Cage playing (4,6,2,7)

A slug and a snail decided to settle a long-standing argument as to who was the best sprinter. So they planned a race between two stones set a distance D cm apart. Said the slug to the snail "Since I'm slimier than you, I intend to start T seconds before you". "In that case," said the snail, who was rather slow, "I'm going to give you X cm start". It didn't matter.

The slug, who could move at speed V cm/sec, was only half as fast as the snail. The result was a dead heat, t seconds after the slug set off. Now, D,t,T,V and X were all whole numbers from 1 to 10 inclusive, no two numbers being the same. How long did it take the snail to reach the finish

The robots have me scratching my head too much, and without any further info I can only say this:

AC = number of arms each Caky member has
AU = number of arms each Usky member has
NC = number of Caky tribe members
NU = number of Usky tribe members


1. NU = 4*NC
2. AC+48=AU

ASSUMING:
Uskies, that have had one of their arms removed, no longer belong to Usky tribe. The case when they actually become Caky tribe members then is not counted.

NOT UNDERSTANDING:



This number is exactly twice the number of arms they have, half must be male and half female. Any lesser number means they have more arms than spouses to link.
I don't understand "the number belonging to that tribe". Does this mean:
- The number is assigned to the tribe?
- Number of members must be exactly this number?


Is the "number of links" number of members each tribe member can link to, or a number of all hand-hand links, or a number of member-member links?


Relative

The robots have me scratching my head too much, and without any further info I can only say this:

Quote, "HAH! It CAN'T raed MY minde!!!!
I tougth off 41 adn subtstructed tehn I got
37 adn I clicked THE CYRSTALL BAL didnt get it RIHGT!!!"

Alas poor Relative, such a sad way to go. The full answer, (well my answer) is reproduced below.


ARMLESS ALIENS. There were 14 Cakies and 56 Usties. A robot with n arms requires n females and vice-versa, and the number of members is 2n with n squared links. Let the Caky tribe have x arms each and the Usty tribe have y. Then the maximum number of links that the Usty tribe can make after the mutilation is y(2y-1)/2. The number of extra arms each Caky needs is 24y/2x allowing x(x + 24y/2x) links. Forming the links equation we have 2(y squared) - 49y - 4(x squared) = 0. We must have y=4x so that y - 4x is a factor. A long division shows that the condition for zero remainder is x=7 so y=28. The numbers of members are twice these.


Something a little easier :wink:

In a survey to find the greatest human being, the top four people and their occupation were listed in a magazine. However, only one entry in each column was correctly positioned. The following facts were true. (1) Albert was two places above the bricklayer, (2) Darling was one place below Charles, (3) Curious was two places below the welder. Can you find the 1st name, surname and occupation for each position?

1st Name Surname Occupation
Isaac Newtune Welder
Albert Eyeline Gardener
Marie Curious Cleaner
Charles Darling Bricklayer

Strange, this thread was locked a while ago, so I started a new one. But now it's opened again. Ah well.



"To be more precise, how many bipeds and how many four-legged animals are there And is the cook completely mad"?

There are 112 head. This is true because it's documented. There are 43 four-legged animals and 69 two-legged animals. They must have miscounted because for there to be 297 legs at least one animal must have one leg.

Whim

Friends, Romans and Citizens, I return amongst you battered, bruised and truly sorry for the outrage caused. As well as the crack in the space time continuum.

If you are waiting for me to ?'spill the beans', ?'dig the dirt', ?'tell it like it is' such as;

They came for me early one morning, the door went in and there they stood there like a scene from ?'Men in Black' I was taken to their headquarters in Beverly Hills, between Santa Monica and West Hollywood.

There I was subjected to the cruellest form of interrogation, they played a loop of, ?'Have a nice day, have a nice day…' Well, I took as much as I could stand, but after seven seconds, I was at breaking point. "Who were you working for?" the big one said, I could take no more, "it was not me, it was a RELATIVE" Was this planned? They demanded. "No it was on a WHIM and a prayer, I cried". "Did you use a secret password?" They yelled. "Oh no, I used MY OWN USERNAME" I said.

How they demanded, "did you get into the main system; did you use the power line?" "No" I said "I used A DRIAN". They turned the tape off and offered me a glass of champagne. "Leave the MAGNUM" I said, "Now when do I get to make my phone call?" "Oh no" They said "That was what caused the trouble in the first place". "Well what about my rights? Where is my Miranda?

Then in she came ?'sex on legs' Then, the next morning after a night of romance ?'Miranda' pulled off his wig and disguise and there stood … (censored) de (censored) " Your trouble tryagain is, you need far more Ram if you want to improve performance". With that, I took off my disguise to reveal my true identity. "Oh my God" He yelled "you are (censored) I have never seen such a (censored) you make me (censored)"

With that he put a electronic tag around my neck and left. So, I am sort of on ?'probation' and every time he presses Ctrl+Alt+Delete, I get 220 volts through the bolt in my neck. My problem is; I am beginning to like it.

However if this is what you were expecting me to tell you, forget it. Only the good die young. I on the other hand will just smell bad and rot.

Having said that, did anyone miss me? Ok, did anyone notice I was ?'in jail'? Food parcels?, Red Cross? What the heck, like Dracula It's good to be back.

Whim, It was good to see you kept going.

"There are 112 head. This is true because it's documented. There are 43 four-legged animals and 69 two-legged animals. They must have miscounted because for there to be 297 legs at least one animal must have one leg."

There are 69 bipeds and 43 four-legged animals. If all animals were four-legged, the officer would have counted 448 legs, not 310. Obviously 138 legs are missing, hence 69 subjects are bipeds.

It's worth pointing out that, within the bipeds, there are 13 stilt birds, which include flamingos and storks. The cook must have counted them as they were standing on one leg only, so whilst he is not crazy, he almost drove the customs officer mad.


Guilty or Innocent?

A General of Pania's army was facing a court martial. The accusation was brought forth that a Panian soldier had killed an unarmed civilian in an opposing army. The General was considered responsible for the conduct of all his commands.

The defence had built its case on the possibility that a Panian civilian vigilante had killed the civilian. But as it happens, during the war all soldiers (80% of the populace) wore red uniforms, and all civilians (the remaining 20%) wore green. A single witness of unquestionable character had positively confirmed that the killer was in red. Other facts emerged that eliminated the possibility of a fake uniform, or tricks of the light.

It looked quite bad for The General, until under cross examination it was revealed that the witness was somewhat color blind. Carefully controlled tests determined that the witness could correctly tell red and green apart with only 85% accuracy.

The General smiled smugly, knowing that under court martial rules, he could only be convicted for his officers' conduct if guilt was established with 95% certainty. The defence rested.

The prosecution's lawyer stepped up and addressed the Panian Jury. What was his response

On a lighter note, whilst in LA I picked up a few ?'riddles' they are a play on words, some you may find amusing.

Why doesn't Sweden export cattle?

Why is a barefoot boy like an Eskimo?

Why is a mouse like hay?

Why is a shirt with 8 buttons so interesting?

Why is an inexpensive dog a bad watchdog?

Why is Ireland so rich?

Why was the Lone Ranger poor?

Why is Saturday night important to Julius's girl friend?

Where does the sandman keep his sleeping sand?

Where were the first French fries made?

Why did the man throw away all the new pennies he had?

Why did the tree need less sunshine?

Why do people feel stronger on Saturdays and Sundays?