Sisters and Brothers
In one family there are 6 sisters and each of them has one brother. How many children are there in the family?
SOLUTION
There is just one brother and therefore there are 7 children in the family.
Category: Brain Teasers
A collection of Math, Chess, Detective, Lateral, Insight, Science, Practical, and Deduction puzzles, carefully curated by Puzzle Prime.
We do not know where this puzzle originated from. If you have any information, please let us know via email.
A Maze Puzzle for the Day
Here’s a little maze puzzle I originally built a couple of years ago, that seems apropos to reprise now:
Can you make it from the A in the top left of this grid to the Z in the bottom right, always going either up one letter (for instance, A to B or G to H) or down one letter (for instance, N to M)? The alphabet wraps around, so you can go from Z up to A or A down to Z too. Try as hard as you can (and remember that you can always work backward if you get stuck forwards), and see where you get!
Remark: Solving the maze is not the same thing as solving the puzzle. Read those instructions carefully!
SOLUTION
Notice this puzzle is published on April 1st. Actually, it doesn’t have a standard solution. If you connect every two consecutive letters which appear next to each other in the grid, you will get two disconnected components, one of which contains the START and the other contains the END. The first component has 5 dead-ends – at letters A, P, R, I, L, and the second component has 5 dead-ends – at letters F, O, O, L, S. These two spell out “April Fools”, which is the real solution of the maze.
How Many Letters
How many letters does the correct answer to this puzzle contain?
SOLUTION
Four – the only number which has the same number of letters as the number itself.
Seven Bridges
This is a map of old-time Kongsberg. The green shapes are bridges which connect the different parts of the city. Can you find a path through the city which goes through every bridge exactly once?
SOLUTION
No, you cannot. Notice that, except for the first city and the last city section you finish, the number of bridges used in every other section is even. However, there are three sections with an odd number of bridges, and therefore you cannot use all bridges exactly once.
Funky Mate
Place only 2 rooks and 1 knight on the board, so that the Black player is mated.
SOLUTION
You can place the rooks on c5 and e5, and the knight on f5.
Apples or Strawberries
What is heavier – 1 pound of apples or 1 pound of strawberries?
SOLUTION
They are equally heavy – 1 pound each.
Missing Pawns
White to play and mate in 4 moves.
Remark: The position on the diagram is one which occurs in actual play.
SOLUTION
Notice that the black queen and the black king have switched positions. However, this can happen only if some pawns have been moved. Therefore, we can conclude that the bottom row on the diagram is actually the 8th row of the chessboard. All black and all white pieces have reached their respective opposite sides of the board.
Now, White’s first move is Kb8-d7. The only moves black can play are with the knights. If Black plays Kb1-a3, Kb1-c3 or Kg1-h3, white mates in 2 more moves – Kd7-c5 and Kc5-d3. If Black moves Kg1-f3, then after Kd7-c5 Black can delay the mate by playing Kf3-e5. However, after the white queen takes it with Qxe5, Kc5-d3 is unavoidable.
Marathon
You are running a marathon and right at the finish line, you pass the runner in the 2nd position. In which place do you finish the marathon?
SOLUTION
You finish 2nd. Before passing the runner you were at 3rd place.
Snail on a Tree
A snail is trying to climb a
SOLUTION
Seven days only. After the sixth day, the snail would have climbed 6 meters. During the seventh day, it will climb 4 more meters and will get to the top.
Burn the Ropes
You have two ropes and a lighter. Each of the ropes burns out in exactly 60 minutes, but not at a uniform rate – it is possible for example that half of a rope burns out in 40 minutes and the other half in just 20. How can you measure exactly 45 minutes using the ropes and the lighter?
SOLUTION
First, you light up both ends of the first rope and one of the ends of the second rope. Exactly 30 minutes later the first rope will burn out completely and then you have to light up the other end of the second rope. It will take 15 more minutes for the second rope also to burn out completely, for a total of 30 + 15 = 45 minutes.