Quicker Maths » brain teasers

Imagine you are in a room with 3 switches

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:12:14 +0000

IQ Test

Imagine you are in a big house and you need to match out the 3 switches located in the first floor with the three light bulbs located in the ground floor. In the ground floor there are 3 bulbs (all are off at the moment), each switch belongs to some bulb.

Question

How can you find out, which switch belongs to which bulb?

Other conditions

It is impossible to see from one room to another.

He can only get down only once to check out the bulb.

Only hands are used. No other device.

Leave your answers below as comments.

A man on a park bench

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:16:52 +0000

Find below two family relationship puzzles. To answer these questions, one needs to understand the way words are used or rather twisted in the given questions.

A man on a park bench is looking at a small portrait. You ask him, Who is that in the picture?
The man says, Brothers and sisters, I have none, but that man's father, is my father's son.
Can you tell what person is in the picture?

A beggar's brother died, but the man who died had no brother. How could this be?

Leave your answers below as comments. If you have more such puzzles based on family relationships, post them as comments below.

Sheikh’s Heritage

admin — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:56:38 +0000

This is a simple yet interesting puzzle for you. It might appear to be a little tricky at the beginning but some amount of out-of-the-box thinking can help you to answer it in a jiffy. So here you go -

How to get the heritage?

An Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race their camels to a distant city to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What does the wise man say?

Check Out The Year

admin — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:51:43 +0000

Turn of the Century Puzzle

Your grandfather, determined to start the year 1900 off right, went to bed at 7 p.m. on December 31, 1899, setting his alarm clock to wake him at 8 the next morning. He slept like a log. How many hours sleep did he get?

Ancient Coin Puzzle

A thief went to a shop that sold antique coins. He stole a coin from Emperor Alexander’s time that had 326 B.C. inscribed on it. These rare coins were worth $ 100 for every year of their age (years from date of minting till now). So how much did the thief get for his stolen coin?

Both the puzzles above have some similarity. There is a clue hidden in the title of the post itself.

Timing Puzzles

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:30:16 +0000

Timing Puzzles

Timing Puzzle 1
Having 2 sand-glasses: one 7-minute and the second one 4-minute. How can you time correctly 9 minutes ?

Timing Puzzle 2
A teacher of mathematics used an unconventional method to measure a 15-minute time limit for a test. He just used 7 and 11-minutehourglasses. During the whole time he turned sandglasses only 3 times (turning both hourglasses at once count as one flip).

Explain how the teacher measured 15 minutes.

Leave your answers below

Logical Reasoning Riddle

admin — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:35:10 +0000

Another logical reasoning puzzle for you. The benefit of solving such logical puzzle is immense. It's always a good exercise for the brain. Moreover, it helps you in preparing for various competitive examinations.

During the latest round of a game, Kamal was fourth. Ramesh is not the oldest, but is older than Sujan, who was not second. The child who was next in age to the youngest, finished second. The child who finished in third place is older than the child who finished first. Bimal is younger than the child who finished in third place. Can you determine who finished where and place the children in order of age?

Leave your answers below -

Brain Puzzle Question

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:39:17 +0000

Solve this interesting brain teaser or puzzle and exercise your mind.

Thief in the Jhootas' Club - Brain Teaser

An expensive painting was stolen from the Jhootas’ Club, but the CID is having a hard time identifying the culprit because every statement made by a member of the Jhootas’ Club is false. Only four members visited the club on the day that the painting was stolen. This is what they told to the CID inspector Fredrick:

Anand: None of us took the painting. The painting was here when I left.
Bobby: I arrived second. The painting was already gone.
Chirantan: I was the third to arrive. The painting was here when I arrived.
Dinesh: Whoever stole the painting arrived before me. The painting was already gone.

Obviously neither Fredrick nor Daya could figure out who’s the thief out of the four members of Jhootas’ club. They requested you (an expert on such subjects) to solve this puzzle for them. According to you who out of these four liars stole the painting? Please explain to all of us.

3 Men and 5 Hats – Brainteaser

admin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:20:29 +0000

Interesting Brainteaser

3 innocent prisoners were sitting in a jail. One day, the cruel jailer takes them out and places them in a line on three chairs, in such a way that man C can see both man A and man B, man B can see only man A, and man A can see none of the other men.

The jailer shows them 5 hats, 2 of which are black and 3 of which are white. After this, he blindfolds the men, places one hat on each of their heads, and removes the blindfolds again. The jailer tells his three prisoners that if one of them is able to determine the color of his hat within one minute, all of them are released. Otherwise, they will all be executed. None of the prisoners can see his own hat, and all are intelligent. After 59 seconds, man A shouts out the (correct) color of his hat!

What is the color of man A's hat, and how does he know?

You have 12 coins, one of which is fake.

admin — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:56:25 +0000

Hey friends, try and solve this intricate puzzle. You can use your skills to explain this puzzle using a flow chart. If you make one send it to me on my email address, I will include it in the body of this post itself.

12 coins 3 weighings

You have 12 coins, one of which is fake. The fake coin is indistinguishable from the rest except that it is either heavier or lighter, but you don't know which. Can you determine which is the fake coin and whether it is lighter or heavier using a balance scale and only 3 weighing?

Dangerous Wine Tasting

admin — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:43:10 +0000

You are the ruler of a medieval empire and you are about to have a celebration tomorrow. The celebration is the most important party you have ever hosted. You've got 1000 bottles of wine you were planning to open for the celebration, but you find out that one of them is poisoned. The poison exhibits no symptoms until death. Death occurs within ten to twenty hours after consuming even the minutest amount of poison. You have over a thousand slaves at your disposal and just under 24 hours to determine which single bottle is poisoned. You have a handful of prisoners about to be executed, and it would mar your celebration to have anyone else killed. What is the smallest number of prisoners you must have to drink from the bottles to be absolutely sure to find the poisoned bottle within 24 hours?