One day a scholar came to the court of Emperor Akbar and challenged Birbal to answer his questions and thus prove that he was as clever as people said he was.
He asked Birbal: "Would you prefer to answer a hundred easy questions or just a single difficult one?"
Both the emperor and Birbal had had a difficult day and were impatient to leave.
"Ask me one difficult question," said Birbal.
"Well, then tell me," said the man, "which came first into the world, the chicken or the egg?"
"The chicken," replied Birbal, very confidently.
"How do you know?" asked the scholar, a note of triumph in his voice.
What did Birbal answer to this?
Birbal told the scholar, "We had agreed you would ask only one question and you have already asked it" and he and the emperor walked away leaving the scholar gaping.
There are 4 big houses in my home town. They are made from these materials: red marbles, green marbles, white marbles and blue marbles.
Mrs Jennifer's house is somewhere to the left of the green marbles one and the third one along is white marbles.
Mrs Sharon owns a red marbles house and Mr Cruz does not live at either end, but lives somewhere to the right of the blue marbles house.
Mr Danny lives in the fourth house, while the first house is not made from red marbles.
Who lives where, and what is their house made from ?
From, left to right:
#1 Mrs Jennifer - blue marbles
#2 Mrs Sharon - red marbles
#3 Mr Cruz - white marbles
#4 Mr Danny - green marbles
If we separate and label the clues, and label the houses #1, #2, #3, #4 from left to right we can see that:
a. Mrs Jennifer's house is somewhere to the left of the green marbles one.
b. The third one along is white marbles.
c. Mrs Sharon owns a red marbles house
d. Mr Cruz does not live at either end.
e. Mr Cruz lives somewhere to the right of the blue marbles house.
f. Mr Danny lives in the fourth house
g. The first house is not made from red marbles.
By (g) #1 isn't made from red marbles, and by (b) nor is #3. By (f) Mr Danny lives in #4 therefore by (c) #2 must be red marbles, and Mrs Sharon lives there.
Therefore by (d) Mr Cruz must live in #3, which, by (b) is the white marbles house. By (a) #4 must be green marbles (otherwise Mrs Jennifer couldn't be to its left) and by (f) Mr Danny lives there.
Which leaves Mrs Jennifer, living in #1, the blue marbles house.
After recent events, Question Mark is annoyed with his brother, Skid Mark. Skid thought it would be funny to hide Question's wallet. He told Question that he would get it back if he finds it. So, first off, Skid laid five colored keys in a row. One of them is a key to a room where Skid is hiding Question's wallet. Using the clues, can you determine the order of the keys and which is the right key?
Red: This key is somewhere to the left of the key to the door.
Blue: This key is not at one of the ends.
Green: This key is three spaces away from the key to the door (2 between).
Yellow: This key is next to the key to the door.
Orange: This key is in the middle.
The order (from left to right) is Green, Red, Orange, Blue, Yellow. The blue key is the key to the door.
A number of people have broken the sound barrier, either in a super-fast car, or in nice fancy planes. However, hundreds of years ago it was broken on horseback. How?
Many people who ride horses carry whips. They crack the whip while they ride the horse. When a whip is cracked, the tip travels faster than the speed of sound, which makes the loud snap. It actually creates a miniature sonic boom of sorts. The whip breaks the sound barrier, thus, it was broken on horseback.
A grandfather's clock chimes the appropriate number of times to indicate the hour, as well as chiming once at each quarter hour. If you were in another room and hear the clock chime just once, what would be the longest period of time you would have to wait in order to be certain of the correct time?
You would have to wait 90 minutes between 12:15 and 1:45. Once you had heard seven single chimes, you would know that the next chime would be two chimes for 2 o'clock.
A man named Stewart is traveling all over the world. First he travels to Cape Town in South Africa. Then to Jakarta in Indonesia. Then to Canberra in Australia. Then to Rome in Italy. Then to Panama City in Panama. Where does he travel next?
Santiago in Chile. He travels to each continent in alphabetical order then to the capital of the country that has the most southern latitude.
