Riddle #513

logicmathclever

Sam has got three daughters. The eldest daughter is the most honest girl in the universe and she always speaks truth. The middle daughter is a modest woman. She speaks truth and lies according to the situations. The youngest one never speaks truth. Not a single word she spoke was true and would never be true. Sam brought a marriage proposal for one of his girls. It was John. John wanted to marry either the eldest or the youngest daughter of Sam as he can easily identify whether the girl speaks truth or lie! John told his desire to Sam. However, Sam laid a condition. He told John that he will not say who the eldest, middle or youngest one is. Also, he allowed John to ask only one question to identify the eldest or youngest so he can marry one. John asked one question and found the right girl. What was the question and whom should he pick?
The question he asked is, 'Is she older than her?' He asks this question to one of the daughters. If he asked this question to older daughter pointing at other two, he probably would know the youngest one! NO matter, she always speaks truth. If he asked the question to middle one, probably he can choose either. If he asked the youngest one, she always lies and he can find eldest one. No matter, he has to choose the youngest one based on the answer.
68.38 %
56 votes

Similar riddles

See also best riddles or new riddles.

logicsimpleclever

Pirate Pete had been captured by a Spanish general and sentenced to death by his 50-man firing squad. Pete cringed, as he knew their reputation for being the worst firing squad in the Spanish military. They were such bad shots that they would often all miss their targets and simply maim their victims, leaving them to bleed to death, as the general's tradition was to only allow one shot per man to save on ammunition. The thought of a slow painful death made Pete beg for mercy. "Very well, I have some compassion. You may choose where the men stand when they shoot you and I will add 50 extra men to the squad to ensure someone will at least hit you. Perhaps if they stand closer they will kill you quicker, if you're lucky," snickered the general. "Oh, and just so you don't get any funny ideas, they can't stand more than 20 ft away, they must be facing you, and you must remain tied to the post in the middle of the yard. And to show I'm not totally heartless, if you aren't dead by sundown I'll release you so you can die peacefully outside the compound. I must go now but will return tomorrow and see to it that you are buried in a nice spot, though with 100 men, I doubt there will be much left of you to bury." After giving his instructions the general left. Upon his return the next day, he found that Pete had been set free alive and well. "How could this be?" demanded the general. "It was where Pete had us stand," explained the captain of the squad. Where did Pete tell them to stand?
Pete told them to form a circle around him. All the squad was facing in at Pete, ready to shoot, when they realized that everyone who missed would likely end up shooting another squad member. So no one dared to fire, knowing the risk. Thus at sundown he was released.
76.02 %
167 votes
logiccleversimple

It was a grandeur party. In order to filter the uninvited guests, the security guard was assigned a task to check the secret password. The guests invited by the royal family also were shared with the secret password. John wasn't an invited guest. He learned that the password is needed to make an entry. He hides himself and started watching the guests and the security. The first guest comes. Security told him, TWELVE and the guest replied SIX. He wished him and allowed him to enter. The second guest comes. Security told him SIX and the guest replied THREE! He was too allowed. John made an entry as third guest. Security told him EIGHT and John replied FOUR. He was thrown out of the party! Why?
The answer should be five. The password is not half of the digit, but the number that represents the number of digits told by security.
75.77 %
99 votes
logiccleverstory

Emily was sitting at her study table, home alone, on a cold and stormy night. Her parents had taken a flight earlier in the morning to Australia as her grandmother had passed away. She had wanted to follow her parents but she had an important English examination the next day which she could not miss. The storm was getting heavier by the minute and the wind was howling outside. All this noise made it very hard for her to concentrate. She was on the verge of dozing off when she was shaken alert by a sudden "THUD!" She dismissed it as a window which had been slammed shut by the wind. She tried to concentrate on her books when she heard faint footsteps. Emily got out of her room and looked around when suddenly, without warning, she was grabbed by the neck. She tried to scream but it came out as a mere whimper as the intruder was pressing hard against her throat with his arm. She tried to free herself from his grip but to no avail. "Give me all your money!" growled the man who had grabbed her from behind. "Th-there is none h-here! Please ll-let me go!" cried Emily. "Don't LIE TO ME!" screamed the increasingly agitated man. She felt the man strengthen his grip around her neck. She said nothing and a few seconds passed by in silence. Suddenly the phone rang which alerted both of them. "People will get suspicious if I don't answer the phone," said Emily, with a controlled voice. The intruder let her go. "Alright, but NO funny business, or ELSE!" said the nervous intruder. Emily walked toward the phone. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She picked up the phone. "Hey Em! How's the revision going?" said the caller. "Hey Anna. Thanks for the call. Hey you know those Science notes I lent you last week? Well I really need them back. It would be a great help to me. It's an emergency, so if you could give me them tomorrow it would be great. Please hurry in finding the notes. I need to get back to my books now. Bye," Emily said. She hung up the phone. "It was wise of you not to say anything," said the intruder, although he was more than a bit confused by her conversation. "Now TELL ME WHERE THE MONEY IS KEPT!" screamed the thief. "It...it's...in my dad's room. The first room on the right. Third drawer," said Emily. "SHOW me!" said the man, and removed his grip around her neck. She took a big gulp of air and nearly fell. She swallowed hard and said a silent prayer. She walked slowly, in silence, toward her father's room. All of a sudden, they heard police sirens. The intruder froze in his footsteps. He ran to the nearest window and jumped out of it. Emily ran outside in time to see the intruder being escorted into the car. She saw Anna and she ran toward her and hugged her. "Smart kids," said the policeman. What had happened?
Emily had used the mute button during her conversation with Anna so that all Anna heard was: "call...help...emergency...please hurry". Anna, sensing something was wrong, called the police and told them Emily's address. The police were able to come to Emily's house in time to catch the perpetrator.
75.54 %
250 votes
logiccleversimple

In olden days you are a clever thief charged with treason against the king and sentenced to death. But the king decides to be a little lenient and lets you choose your own way to die. What way should you choose? Remember, you're clever!
I would have chosen to die of "old age". Did you?
75.48 %
334 votes
logicmath

You have a basket of infinite size (meaning it can hold an infinite number of objects). You also have an infinite number of balls, each with a different number on it, starting at 1 and going up (1, 2, 3, etc...). A genie suddenly appears and proposes a game that will take exactly one minute. The game is as follows: The genie will start timing 1 minute on his stopwatch. Where there is 1/2 a minute remaining in the game, he'll put balls 1, 2, and 3 into the basket. At the exact same moment, you will grab a ball out of the basket (which could be one of the balls he just put in, or any ball that is already in the basket) and throw it away. Then when 3/4 of the minute has passed, he'll put in balls 4, 5, and 6, and again, you'll take a ball out and throw it away. Similarly, at 7/8 of a minute, he'll put in balls 7, 8, and 9, and you'll take out and throw away one ball. Similarly, at 15/16 of a minute, he'll put in balls 10, 11, and 12, and you'll take out and throw away one ball. And so on....After the minute is up, the genie will have put in an infinite number of balls, and you'll have thrown away an infinite number of balls. Assume that you pull out a ball at the exact same time the genie puts in 3 balls, and that the amount of time this takes is infinitesimally small. You are allowed to choose each ball that you pull out as the game progresses (for example, you could choose to always pull out the ball that is divisible by 3, which would be 3, then 6, then 9, and so on...). You play the game, and after the minute is up, you note that there are an infinite number of balls in the basket. The next day you tell your friend about the game you played with the genie. "That's weird," your friend says. "I played the exact same game with the genie yesterday, except that at the end of my game there were 0 balls left in the basket." How is it possible that you could end up with these two different results?
Your strategy for choosing which ball to throw away could have been one of many. One such strategy that would leave an infinite number of balls in the basket at the end of the game is to always choose the ball that is divisible by 3 (so 3, then 6, then 9, and so on...). Thus, at the end of the game, any ball of the format 3n+1 (i.e. 1, 4, 7, etc...), or of the format 3n+2 (i.e. 2, 5, 8, etc...) would still be in the basket. Since there will be an infinite number of such balls that the genie has put in, there will be an infinite number of balls in the basket. Your friend could have had a number of strategies for leaving 0 balls in the basket. Any strategy that guarantees that every ball n will be removed after an infinite number of removals will result in 0 balls in the basket. One such strategy is to always choose the lowest-numbered ball in the basket. So first 1, then 2, then 3, and so on. This will result in an empty basket at the game's end. To see this, assume that there is some ball in the basket at the end of the game. This ball must have some number n. But we know this ball was thrown out after the n-th round of throwing balls away, so it couldn't be in there. This contradiction shows that there couldn't be any balls left in the basket at the end of the game. An interesting aside is that your friend could have also used the strategy of choosing a ball at random to throw away, and this would have resulted in an empty basket at the end of the game. This is because after an infinite number of balls being thrown away, the probability of any given ball being thrown away reaches 100% when they are chosen at random.
75.03 %
77 votes
logicmathsimpleclean

How to measure exactly 4 gallon of water from 3 gallon and 5 gallon jars, given, you have unlimited water supply from a running tap.
Step 1. Fill 3 gallon jar with water. ( 5p – 0, 3p – 3) Step 2. Pour all its water into 5 gallon jar. (5p – 3, 3p – 0) Step 3. Fill 3 gallon jar again. ( 5p – 3, 3p – 3) Step 4. Pour its water into 5 gallon jar untill it is full. Now you will have exactly 1 gallon water remaining in 3 gallon jar. (5p – 5, 3p – 1) Step 5. Empty 5 gallon jar, pour 1 gallon water from 3 gallon jar into it. Now 5 gallon jar has exactly 1 gallon of water. (5p – 1, 3p – 0) Step 6. Fill 3 gallon jar again and pour all its water into 5 gallon jar, thus 5 gallon jar will have exactly 4 gallon of water. (5p – 4, 3p – 0)
74.97 %
91 votes
logicmathsimplecleanclever

There are 100 ants on a board that is 1 meter long, each facing either left or right and walking at a pace of 1 meter per minute. The board is so narrow that the ants cannot pass each other; when two ants walk into each other, they each instantly turn around and continue walking in the opposite direction. When an ant reaches the end of the board, it falls off the edge. From the moment the ants start walking, what is the longest amount of time that could pass before all the ants have fallen off the plank? You can assume that each ant has infinitely small length.
The longest amount of time that could pass would be 1 minute. If you were looking at the board from the side and could only see the silhouettes of the board and the ants, then when two ants walked into each other and turned around, it would look to you as if the ants had walked right by each other. In fact, the effect of two ants walking into each other and then turning around is essentially the same as two ants walking past one another: we just have two ants at that point walking in opposite directions. So we can treat the board as if the ants are walking past each other. In this case, the longest any ant can be on the board is 1 minute (since the board is 1 meter long and the ants walk at 1 meter per minute). Thus, after 1 minute, all the ants will be off the board.
74.89 %
100 votes