Best long hard riddles

logicmathclever

You and a friend are standing in front of two houses. In each house lives a family with two children. "The family on the left has a boy who loves history, but their other child prefers math," your friend tells you. "The family on the right has a 7-year old boy, and they just had a new baby," he explains. "Does either family have a girl?" you ask. "I'm not sure," your friend says. "But pick the family that you think is more likely to have a girl. If they do have a girl, I'll give you $100." Which family should you pick, or does it not matter?
You should pick the house on the left. Specifically, there is a 2/3 chance that the family on the left has a girl, whereas there's only a 1/2 chance that the house on the right has a girl. This is a very counterintuitive riddle. It seems like there should always be a 1/2 chance that a given child is a girl. And in fact there is. The key word there is "given". Because we are not asking about a "given" child for the house on the left. We are asking about what could be either child. Whereas for the house on the right, we are asking about a "given" child...specifically, we're asking about the younger child. There are 3 possibilities for the children in the first house: Younger Older Girl Boy Boy Girl Boy Boy There is no "Girl, Girl" option because we know the house on the left has at least one boy. Since each of these 3 options is equally likely, and 2 of them have one girl, there is a 2/3 chance of there being a girl in the house on the left. For the house on the right, because we already know the older child is a boy, there are only two possibilities: Younger Older Girl Boy Boy Boy And as we can see, there is a 1/2 chance for the house on the right having a girl. Search for: Boy or Girl paradox
MessengerWhatsapp
56.77 %
74 votes
logicmysterydetective

It was a man's birthday. He lay dead in the lounge room of his house. Next to his body was a note, written in pencil. The note read 'Happy Birthday, Friend'. The victim had a girlfriend and the police suspected her ex-boyfriend. They could find no obvious evidence. While searching the ex-boyfriend's car, the police saw an envelope with the girlfriend's address written on it. They thought they would get the handwriting checked against the note. The scientist in charge came in early to work the next day; it was 7am. He looked out his window which faced east and stared at the rising sun and it was then that he realised how to prove the ex-boyfriend killed the man, even though the girlfriend's address was not written in the same handwriting. How did he do it?
The scientist's office faced east, and the sun was coming in through the window at a very low angle. He saw some very faint shadows on the surface of the envelope. He looked closer. There were the words embossed on the paper. They read "Happy Birthday, Friend". The ex-boyfriend had forgotten that a pencil leaves an impression on paper beneath the page written on.
MessengerWhatsapp
48.54 %
189 votes
trickymysteryclever

An American, who had never been to any country other than the United States, travelled a long way to see a sight that very few people had seen. He was standing one day on solid ground when he saw the Great Wall of China with his own eyes. How come?
He was an astronaut standing on the moon - from where the Great Wall of China is visible.
MessengerWhatsapp
42.12 %
252 votes
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