Best long riddles

interviewlogicmathclean

A man has two ropes of varying thickness (Those two ropes are not identical, they aren’t the same density nor the same length nor the same width). Each rope burns in 60 minutes. He actually wants to measure 45 mins. How can he measure 45 mins using only these two ropes. He can’t cut the one rope in half because the ropes are non-homogeneous and he can’t be sure how long it will burn.
He will burn one of the rope at both the ends and the second rope at one end. After half an hour, the first one burns completely and at this point of time, he will burn the other end of the second rope so now it will take 15 mins more to completely burn. so total time is 30+15 i.e. 45mins.
73.74 %
82 votes
trickywho am I

I am first in Earth, second in Heaven, I appear two times in a week. You can only see me once in a year, although I'm in the middle of sea. Who am I?
Answer is E The asnwer is E. As In spelling of Earth E comes first, in Heaven it comes second, in week it comes twice, in a year it comes once and finally in spelling of sea E stands in middle of the spelling.
73.69 %
1379 votes
simpletricky

Presume that you do not know what a rhino looks like. Now the question goes like this: If one day while walking in a forest with two of your close friends, one friend shows you an elephant and tells that this is a rhino, and another friend shows you a hippopotamus and tells you that this is rhino, who would you believe and why?
I told you that you do not know what a rhino looks like, not that you are unaware of what a hippo and elephant look like. So you shouldn't believe either of them.
73.64 %
59 votes
logicmath

A farmer lived in a small village. He had three sons. One day he gave $100 dollars to his sons and told them to go to market. The three sons should buy 100 animals for $100 dollars. In the market there were chickens, hens and goats. Cost of a goat is $10, cost of a hen is $5 and cost of a chicken is $0.50. There should be at least one animal from each group. The farmer’s sons should spend all the money on buying animals. There should be 100 animals, not a single animal more or less! What do the sons buy?
They purchased 100 animals for 100 dollars. $10 spent to purchase 1 goat. $45 spent to purchase 9 hens. $45 spent to purchase 90 chickens.
73.64 %
95 votes
cleanlogiccleversimple

One company had two factories, in different parts of the country, that were making the same style of shoes. In both factories, workers were stealing shoes. How, without using any security, could that company stop the stealing?
Make one factory make the left shoe, and the other make the right shoe.
73.60 %
86 votes
logicmath

You have 25 horses. When they race, each horse runs at a different, constant pace. A horse will always run at the same pace no matter how many times it races. You want to figure out which are your 3 fastest horses. You are allowed to race at most 5 horses against each other at a time. You don't have a stopwatch so all you can learn from each race is which order the horses finish in. What is the least number of races you can conduct to figure out which 3 horses are fastest?
You need to conduct 7 races. First, separate the horses into 5 groups of 5 horses each, and race the horses in each of these groups. Let's call these groups A, B, C, D and E, and within each group let's label them in the order they finished. So for example, in group A, A1 finished 1st, A2 finished 2nd, A3 finished 3rd, and so on. We can rule out the bottom two finishers in each race (A4 and A5, B4 and B5, C4 and C5, D4 and D5, and E4 and E5), since we know of at least 3 horses that are faster than them (specifically, the horses that beat them in their respective races). This table shows our remaining horses: A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 A2 B2 C2 D2 E2 A3 B3 C3 D3 E3 For our 6th race, let's race the top finishers in each group: A1, B1, C1, D1 and E1. Let's assume that the order of finishers is: A1, B1, C1, D1, E1 (so A1 finished first, E1 finished last). We now know that horse D1 cannot be in the top 3, because it is slower than C1, B1 and A1 (it lost to them in the 6th race). Thus, D2 and D3 can also not be in the to 3 (since they are slower than D1). Similarly, E1, E2 and E3 cannot be in the top 3 because they are all slower than D1 (which we already know isn't in the top 3). Let's look at our updated table, having removed these horses that can't be in the top 3: A1 B1 C1 A2 B2 C2 A3 B3 C3 We can actually rule out a few more horses. C2 and C3 cannot be in the top 3 because they are both slower than C1 (and thus are also slower than B1 and A1). And B3 also can't be in the top 3 because it is slower than B2 and B1 (and thus is also slower than A1). So let's further update our table: A1 B1 C1 A2 B2 A3 We actually already know that A1 is our fastest horse (since it directly or indirectly beat all the remaining horses). So now we just need to find the other two fastest horses out of A2, A3, B1, B2 and C1. So for our 7th race, we simply race these 5 horses, and the top two finishers, plus A1, are our 3 fastest horses.
73.60 %
86 votes
logicsimplecleanstory

A king has 100 identical servants, each with a different rank between 1 and 100. At the end of each day, each servant comes into the king's quarters, one-by-one, in a random order, and announces his rank to let the king know that he is done working for the day. For example, servant 14 comes in and says "Servant 14, reporting in." One day, the king's aide comes in and tells the king that one of the servants is missing, though he isn't sure which one. Before the other servants begin reporting in for the night, the king asks for a piece of paper to write on to help him figure out which servant is missing. Unfortunately, all that's available is a very small piece that can only hold one number at a time. The king is free to erase what he writes and write something new as many times as he likes, but he can only have one number written down at a time. The king's memory is bad and he won't be able to remember all the exact numbers as the servants report in, so he must use the paper to help him. How can he use the paper such that once the final servant has reported in, he'll know exactly which servant is missing?
When the first servant comes in, the king should write down his number. For each other servant that reports in, the king should add that servant's number to the current number written on the paper, and then write this new number on the paper. Once the final servant has reported in, the number on the paper should equal (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 99 + 100) - MissingServantsNumber Since (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 99 + 100) = 5050, we can rephrase this to say that the number on the paper should equal 5050 - MissingServantsNumber So to figure out the missing servant's number, the king simply needs to subtract the number written on his paper from 5050: MissingServantsNumber = 5050 - NumberWrittenOnThePaper
73.58 %
77 votes
logicmathsimple

Two trains are traveling toward each other on the same track, each at 60 miles per hour. When they are exactly 120 miles apart, a fly takes off from the front of one of the trains, flying toward the other train at a constant rate of 100 miles per hour. When the fly reaches the other train, it instantly changes directions and starts flying toward the other train, still at 100 miles per hour. It keeps doing this back and forth until the trains finally collide. If you add up all the distances back and forth that the fly has travelled, how much total distance has the fly travelled when the trains finally collide?
The fly has travelled exactly 100 miles. We can figure this out using some simple math. Becuase the trains are 120 miles apart when the fly takes off, and are travelling at 60 mph each, they will collide in exactly 1 hour. This gives the fly exactly 1 hour of flying time, going at a speed of 100 miles per hour. Thus, the fly will travel 100 miles in this hour.
73.58 %
77 votes
logicclever

A teacher decides to give a pop quiz one day but all of her students refuse to take the quiz thinking that the teacher will call off the quiz. She can give only one of these students a detention for skipping the quiz. All of the students know each other's names and if a student knows he/she is getting a detention they take the quiz. How can she threaten her students with the single detention so they all take the quiz?
She tells them that she will give the student who skips the quiz whose name comes first alphabetically a detention. This student won't skip because they know they are getting a detention if they do. The next person alphabetically will then know that they will get a detention so they won't skip either, and so on.
73.52 %
112 votes