Category Archives: Brain teaser

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer and together perhaps you can determine the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section, and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  

The more you have of it, the less you see. What is it?

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. However, since I am still abroad in Brazil with limited access to my blog, I thought I’d share an optical illusion, which I hope you enjoy.

I’ll confirm correct responses in the afternoon so don’t worry if you don’t see your comment posted right away. I want to give readers out on the left coast a chance to guess as well.

This Week’s Riddle: At night they come without being fetched, but by day they are lost without being stolen. What are they?

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. However, since I am still abroad in Brazil with limited access to my blog, I thought I’d share an optical illusion, which I hope you enjoy.

Amazingly, the horizontal lines are parallel, even if they seem otherwise when you view the image.

Source

So why do the lines appear slanted? This optical illusion is formed by alternating light and dark tiles in staggered rows. In order for the illusion to work each tile must be surrounded by a layer of color that falls between the white and black colors.  This makes most see a somewhat skewed pattern in which the lines are alternately tilted slightly in one direction then the other with respect to the horizontal and in which the tiles appear to be taller on one side than the other.

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. However, since I am traveling abroad with limited access to my blog, I thought I’d share an optical illusion that you may also enjoy.

The grid illusion below involve shape, position and color.  The contrasts converge to produce the illusion of black dots at the intersections.

So why do we see the black dots? The receptive field of the retina light and dark receptors compete with one another to become active.  Once a receptor is active it inhibits adjacent receptors and it is this inhibition that creates the contrast.

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer and together perhaps you can determine the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section, and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s brain teaser:  

This a most unusual paragraph. How quickly can you find out what is so unusual about it? It looks so ordinary, you’d think nothing was wrong with it. Actually, nothing IS wrong with it. But it is not as ordinary as you might think. If you think about it for a bit, you will find out why it is truly so unusual. So what is it? What is so unordinary about this paragraph?

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer and together perhaps you can determine the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section, and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  A ladder hangs over the side of a ship anchored in a port. The bottom rung touches the water. The distance between rungs is 20 cm and the length of the ladder is 180 cm. The tide is rising at the rate of 15 cm each hour.

When will the water reach the seventh rung from the top?

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer and together perhaps you can determine the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section, and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  After teaching class about roman numerals (X = 10, IX=9 and so on) the teacher asked the class to draw a single continuous line and turn IX into 6. The only stipulation was the pen could not be lifted from the paper until the line was complete.

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share this weeks riddle with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer and together perhaps you’ll figure it out.

Post your answers in the comments section and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  Mary’s mom has four children. The first child is called April. The second is named May and the third child is June.  What is the name of the fourth child?

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share this weeks riddle with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer and together perhaps you’ll figure it out.

Post your answers in the comments section and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  While playing ping-pong, your only ball falls down into a narrow one foot metal pipe embedded in concrete. How can you get it out undamaged, if all the tools you have are your tennis paddle, your shoe-laces, and your plastic water bottle.

Like riddles? Check out past week’s brain teasers.

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain.

Share this with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s brainteaser:  There is a single word that goes with each of the three words listed below that will form a compound word (or word pair that functions as a compound word).  Share your answer.

Past Brain Teasers

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share this with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  A New York City hairdresser recently said that he would rather cut the hair of three Canadians than one New Yorker. Why would he say that?

Past Brain Teasers

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain. Share this with friends or coworkers if you cannot figure out the answer.

Post your answers in the comments section and I’ll confirm the correct responses after lunch to give everyone a fair chance.

This week’s riddle:  There are six eggs in the basket. Six people each take one of the eggs. How can it be that one egg is left in the basket?

Each Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain.

I’m confident you’ll see through this week’s riddle and figure it out.

This week’s riddle:  Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don’t know what he looks like but they know his name is John and that he is inside the house. Inside the house is a carpenter, mechanic, plumber and fireman playing poker. Without hesitation they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know who to arrest?

Every Friday morning I post a riddle or brain teaser.  The idea is to get you to think outside the box and exercise your brain.  If you cannot figure this out, share it with friends or co-workers and collectively you may get the right answer.  Don’t despair if you are stumped.  Some of these riddles / brain teasers I can’t figure out either.

I refrain from publishing the correct answer in the comments section until lunch time on the East coast to give people a chance to guess and write their answers.  Give it a try.

What is broken as soon as it is spoken?

Past Brain Teasers