Riddles of Logic

Q: What is greater than God,

more evil than the devil,

the poor have it,

the rich need it,

and if you eat it, you'll die?

A:  Nothing.

Here come several enigmas that appeared in the Batman movies - usually Riddler asking Bruce Wayne.

Q: If you look at the number on my face you won't find thirteen anyplace.

A:   A clock.

Q: Tear one off and scratch my head what was red is black instead.

A:   A matchstick.

Q: The eight of us go forth not back to protect our king from a foes attack.

A:   Chess pawns.

Q: There are three men in a boat with four cigarettes but no matches. How do they manage to smoke?

A:   They throw one cigarette overboard and made the boat a cigarette lighter.

Q: What room can no one enter?

A:   A mushroom.

Q: What is it that's always coming but never arrives?

A:   Tomorrow.

Q: When is a man drowned, but still not wet?

A:   When he's trapped in quicksand.

OLDIE BUT A GOODIE

Q: Who makes it, has no need of it.

Who buys it, has no use for it.

Who uses it can neither see nor feel it.

What is it?

A:   A coffin.

THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX

Q: Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?

A:   Man. He crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then walks with a cane as an old man.

STICKY RIDDLE

Q: What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?

A:   A stamp.

WELL

Q: What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?

A:   A towel.

BUTCHER

Q: Paul's height is six feet, he's an assistant at a butcher's shop, and wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?

A:   Meat.

TASTY

Q: There was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house. Inside the white house there was a red house. Inside the red house there were lots of babies. What is it?

A:   Watermelon.

FUN GUY

WELCOME TO MIAMI

Q: What kind of tree can you carry in your hand?

A:   A palm.

LOOK ME UP

Q: Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?

A:   Incorrectly.

CIA

Q: If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you haven't got me. What am I?

A:   Secret.

FINGERS CROSSED

Q: What gets broken without being held?

A:   A promise.

YUMMY

Q: Feed me and I live, yet give me a drink and I die.

A:   Fire.

BANKRUPT

Q:  A man is pushing his car along the road when he comes to a hotel. He shouts, "I'm bankrupt!" Why?

A:   He was playing Monopoly.

THE ARK

Q: How many of each species did Moses take on the ark with him?

A:   None, Moses wasn't on the ark Noah was.

HEAVY RIDDLE

Q: Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not. What am I?

A:   Forward I am ton, backwards I am not.

TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY

Q: He has married many women, but has never been married. Who is he?

A:   A preacher.

HERO

Q: Take off my skin - I won't cry, but you will! What am I?

A:   An onion.

JOHN LENNON

Q: Imagine you are in a dark room. How do you get out?

A:   Stop imagining.

CREATIVITY

Q: What invention lets you look right through a wall?

A:   A window.

NOT MUCH OF A SPORT

Q: What can you catch but not throw?

A:   A cold.

LOOK CLOSELY

Q: What is at the end of a rainbow?

A:   The letter W.

LIGHT AS A FEATHER

Q: What is as light as a feather, but even the world's strongest man couldn't hold it for more than a minute?

A:   His breath.

TINY

Q: What has one eye but cannot see?

A:   A needle.

NO USE WAITING

Q: What is always coming but never arrives?

A:   Tomorrow.

THINK TWICE

Q: Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?

A:   Neither, they both weigh one pound.

PUZZLING PRATTLE (BY SAM LOYD)

Q: Two children, who were all tangled up in their reckoning of the days of the week, paused on their way to school to straighten matters out. "When the day after tomorrow is yesterday," said Priscilla, "then 'today' will be as far from Sunday as that day was which was 'today' when the day before yesterday was tomorrow!"

On which day of the week did this puzzling prattle occur?

A:   The two children were so befogged over the calendar that they had started on their way to school on Sunday morning!

APPLES

Q: A basket contains 5 apples. Do you know how to divide them among 5 kids so that each one has an apple and one apple stays in the basket?

A:   Answer to this riddle goes as follows: 4 kids get an apple (one apple for each one of them) and the fifth kid gets an apple with the basket still containing the apple.

PEARS

Q: There are a few trees in a garden. On one of them, a pear tree, there are pears (quite logical). But after a strong wind blew, there were neither pears on the tree nor on the ground.

How come?

A:   At first, there were 2 pears on the tree. After the wind blew, one pear fell on the ground. So there where no pears on the tree and there were no pears on the ground.

SACK

Q: A poor farmer went to the market to sell some peas and lentils. However, as he had only one sack and didn't want to mix peas and lentils, he poured in the peas first, tied the sack in the middle, and then filled the top portion of the sack with the lentils. At the market a rich innkeeper happened by with his own sack. He wanted to buy the peas, but he did not want the lentils.

Pouring the seed anywhere else but the sacks is considered soiling. Trading sacks is not allowed. The farmer can't cut a hole in his sack.

How would you transfer the peas to the innkeeper's sack, which he wants to keep, without soiling the produce?

A:   Pour the lentils into the innkeeper's sack, bind it and turn inside out. Pour in the peas. Then unbind the sack a pour the lentils back to your sack.

SEA TALES

Q: The captain of a ship was telling this interesting story: "We traveled the sea far and wide. At one time, two of my sailors were standing on opposite sides of the ship. One was looking west and the other one east. And at the same time, they could see each other clearly."

How can that be possible?

A:   The marines were standing back against the sides of the ship so they were looking at each other. It does not matter where the ship is (of course it does not apply to the North and South Pole).

SHIP LADDER

Q: 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?

A:   If the tide is raising water, then it is raising the ship on water, too. So water will reach still the first rung.

HOTEL BILL

Q: Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager finds out that the room rate is $25 and gives the bellboy $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to split among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person. Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totaling $27. The bellboy has another $2, adding up to $29.

Where is the remaining dollar?

A:   This is a nice nonsense. Each guest paid $9 because they gave $30 and they were given back $3. The manager got $25 and the difference ($2) has the bellboy. So it is nonsense to add the $2 to the $27, since the bellboy kept the $2.

SMALL HOTEL

Q: 13 people came into a hotel with 12 rooms and each guest wanted his own room. The bellboy solved this problem.

He asked the thirteenth guest to wait a little with the first guest in room number 1. So in the first room there were two people. The bellboy took the third guest to room number 2, the fourth to number 3, ..., and the twelfth guest to room number 11. Then he returned to room number 1 and took the thirteenth guest to room number 12, still vacant.

How can everybody have his own room?

A:   Of course, it is impossible. Into the second room should have gone the 2nd guest, because the 13th guest was waiting in room number 1.

TWINS

Q: Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month and year and yet they're not twins.

How can this be?

A:   The two babies are two of a set of triplets.

ONE-WAY STREET

Q: A girl who was just learning to drive went down a one-way street in the wrong direction, but didn't break the law.

How come?

A:   She was walking.

JUST IN TIME

Q: What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years?

A:   The letter m.

SHORT RIDDLES WITH ANSWERS

1.            Why can't a man living in the USA be buried in Canada?

2.            Is it legal for a man in California to marry his widow's sister? Why?

3.            A man builds a house rectangular in shape. All the sides have southern exposure. A big bear walks by. What color is the bear? Why? (similar to the Bear riddle in the section Einstein's Riddles)

4.            If there are 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?

5.            How far can a dog run into the woods?

6.            One big hockey fan claimed to be able to tell the score before any game. How did he do it?

7.            You can start a fire if you have alcohol, petrol, kerosene, paper, candle, coke, a full matchbox and a piece of cotton wool. What is the first thing you light?

8.            Why do Chinese men eat more rice than Japanese men do?

9.            What word describes a woman who does not have all her fingers on one hand?

A:   Here come the answers to the riddling questions:

1.            Why should a living man be buried?

2.            No, it is not legal to get married if you are dead.

3.            The bear is white since the house is built on the North Pole.

4.            If you take 2 apples, then you have of course 2.

5.            The dog can run into the woods only to the half of the wood - than it would run out of the woods.

6.            The score before any hockey game should be 0:0, shouldn't it?

7.            A match, of course.

8.            There are more Chinese men than Japanese men.

9.            Normal - I wouldn't be very happy if I had all my fingers (10) on one hand.