The Incredible Puzzle Thread

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  • edited May 2010
    When you said that "you" made it up i immediately thought it was going to be messed up, so:

    A guy. Because, going down, you have:
    - 2 nipples;
    - 1 belly button
    - and 3 er... legs.

    Nope, the "then" is a time thing. First there are two of something, then one, then three. I probably could have phrased it better but hey, I was young! (and I'm out of ideas right now).
  • edited May 2010
    oh. no. it's not that. potatoes have eyes, but it's CORN that has the ears :p

    Avistew, is it like... the number 213?
  • edited May 2010
    oh. no. it's not that. potatoes have eyes, but it's CORN that has the ears :p

    Avistew, is it like... the number 213?

    Well, when a potato and a cob of corn love each other very much...
  • edited May 2010
    I thought that! But then I thought: no, she was little, she cant have been THAT sick!

    A guy and a girl = 2
    Copulation between said guy and girl = 1 combined mass
    Baby, guy and girl = 3
  • edited May 2010
    You can peel a potato so that it looks like that. Btw did you mean corn in a medical sense or more the corn you can eat?
  • edited May 2010
    Avistew, is it like... the number 213?

    It's not a number. It's something that's alive.

    And now that I think of it, it can apply to more things than I thought at the time.
  • edited May 2010
    taumel wrote: »
    You can peel a potato so that it looks like that. Btw did you mean corn in a medical sense or more the corn you can eat?

    I dunno. either way, it has nothing to do with potatoes or corn.
  • edited May 2010
    I thought that! But then I thought: no, she was little, she cant have been THAT sick!

    A guy and a girl = 2
    Copulation between said guy and girl = 1 combined mass
    Baby, guy and girl = 3

    Yes! that's it!
    Technically, the answer should be "a heterosexual, non-sterile couple that doesn't use birth control". But at the time the answer I expected was "a mommy and a daddy". (Which is flawed too, since they're not parents to begin with. Oh well.)
  • edited May 2010
    what i want to know is, how old were you when you made that up?

    Alright, I is sleepy now, so before I go I'm giving you another one to solve;

    In a town with two barbers, one always has a messy haircut and an untidy shop, while the other has a neat cut and the cleanest store around. Which one would you go to?
  • edited May 2010
    That's the main problem with these kind of riddles, often too many valid options can show up, things get worse if the words aren't wisely choosen. It could be cool in an adventure also would recognize this and so offer several valid solutions.
  • edited May 2010
    I can't remember. But I remember in maternal school (school where you go between ages 2 and 6) how I explained to some boy that no, sodomy didn't result in babies. I know it wasn't in my last year there, so maybe I was about four then?

    Later, I remember asking my parents, since people have sex because they like it or because they want babies, but not always both at the same time, how can you be sure you're going to have babies or not going to have them when you have sex?
    She said that apart from using birth control or not using it, there wasn't much else you could do.
    I commented on how unpractical that was and she seemed to agree.
    I was about six or seven for that, I think.

    I think I came up with the riddle afterwards. So I was in primary school but not a tiny little kid either.
  • edited May 2010
    seriously? around 7 you came up with that? I didn't even know why people KISSED back when I was 7!
  • edited May 2010
    seriously? around 7 you came up with that? I didn't even know why people KISSED back when I was 7!

    Haha I had already kissed a guy when I was 7 xD
    Well, it wasn't a "real kiss" though, we didn't use our tongues or exchanged saliva. Didn't do any of that until I was 19.

    But yeah, my parents are doctors, we had a human skull at home I loved playing with and I knew how you make babies. And I knew what boys looked like because I have 3 brothers and we took baths together.

    Now, the anecdote about when I was 4 years old, at the time I only had a basic concept (penis goes into vagina, then baby) but I already knew how it worked. I only remember that specific anecdote because when I told my parents about how "the boy though you put your penis in the behind instead of the vagina", they exchanged a glance that made me shut up. Now I know why :p
    Also, for years I thought that kid had surprised his parents doing it or something, but later my husband told me that having no sisters, only brothers, he didn't really have a concept of what a woman's body was like, so when he looked as his own body, well he came to that conclusion too at that age, he only learned differently later.

    Anyway, coming up with that isn't really dirty. I knew people had sex. Fairly early, I learned they did it for other reasons than having babies, too. Doesn't mean I had any interest in doing it myself at that point. But just because you're not interested in doing something doesn't mean you don't know it exists.
  • edited May 2010
    What can you see clearly anywhere, but only if someone else speaks it?
    The truth?
    What has no way of speaking, writing or typing, yet communicates to millions of people every day?
    Words? Pictures?
  • edited May 2010
    In a town with two barbers, one always has a messy haircut and an untidy shop, while the other has a neat cut and the cleanest store around. Which one would you go to?

    The untidy shop of course! Why? Because the barbers obviously cut each others hair!
  • edited May 2010
    I knew this one, but:
    a) I know lots of people who cut their own hair
    and
    b) How does having a messy/tidy shop come into account? I can see it being just to throw people off, but if I had to choose I'd rather have a crappy haircut and not have to sit on something disgusting while it's being cut.
  • edited May 2010
    The clean shop means he doesn't get many customers. Messy shop, very busy cutting hair all day, lots of customers.
  • edited May 2010
    Hum. Even the busiest hairdresser I've been too were always super clean. But I guess that makes some sense seen that way.
  • edited May 2010
    Harald B wrote: »
    The truth?

    Yes
  • edited May 2010
    Doesn't make sense to me.
  • edited May 2010
    like "You speak the truth!". Truth can't exist if no one acknowledges that it is there, or if no one creates truth. And you can't create truth for yourself, because you already know. I don't know if that made sense though :rolleyes:
  • edited May 2010
    /me looks skeptical.
  • edited May 2010
    anywho, try to figure out the eyes and mouth and ears one :D
  • edited May 2010
    GinnyN wrote: »
    What's about, the only place in the world if you go 1 mile to the south, 1 mile to the east, and 1 mile to the north and come back to the exactly same point?

    Actually, there are infinite such points. Although the one you're thinking of when compared to all the rest are, quite literally,
    poles apart

    Edit: I see this has been dealt with subsequently.
  • edited May 2010
    mclem wrote: »
    Actually, there are infinite such points. Although the one you're thinking of when compared to all the rest are, quite literally,
    poles apart

    Edit: I see this has been dealt with subsequently.

    I know, but using the rules, there's just one point which this works. In the other you can't =P
  • edited May 2010
    I dont understand that puzzle
  • edited May 2010
    Here's one:

    labyrinth_puzzle.png

    What should you ask to get out?

    Alternatively;

    You come across a forked path. The roads lead one to a village of cannibals, the other to a Utopian society. There are two guards; one who always lies and one who tells the truth. You can ask but one question of both. What should you ask to ensure you go to the Utopia?
  • edited May 2010
    What path would the other guard tell me to walk down if I asked him which leads to Utopia?

    Take the opposite path to that suggested.
  • edited May 2010
    How about this
    3 men are somehow in the jungle and picked up by an indigenous tribe. The tribe's leader makes them stand in a line one behind the other each looking in the same directon. So the one at the rear can see the 2nd guy and the 1st guy. the 2nd guy can see the 1st. and the 1st can't see anyone

    Now the tribe's leader has 5 hats. 3 black and 2 white. he takes 3 at random and places them on the 3 guys. He tells them "whoever finds the colour of his hat first will be set free, the other will be killed"
    They aren't allowed to move at all, or speak unless they know what colour hat they are wearing.

    After 15 or so minutes of silence, the 1st guy says "i got it!" He tells them what colour hat he is wearing and is set free. The other are killed. WHAT COLOUR WAS HIS HAT AND WHAT WAS HIS TRAIN OF THOUGHT FOR FINDING IT? (the answer is no 'its black cause the sun heated it up' Lets say it was a cloudy day)
  • PsyPsy
    edited May 2010
    Hats:
    The third guy doesn't see two white hats, so he doesn't know what color hat he has. That means the hats in front of him are BB, BW, or WB.
    The second guy knows those are the only three options. If the first guy's hat is white, then his hat must be black. If the first guy's hat is black, he doesn't know what color hat he's wearing, so he says nothing.
    Thus the first guy's hat HAS to be black, since neither guy 2 nor guy 3 knew his hat color.
  • edited May 2010
    Hats:

    These things always assume the other people aren't just stupid (or otherwise incapable of logic). Just saying. In real life I probably wouldn't count of that.

    EDIT: in my opinion, what would actually happen is that all three guys would randomly shout a colour before even thinking, so that nobody else has time to guess before they do. This way they only have a 50% chance of dying.
  • edited May 2010
    No, in real life the tribe would just kill the guys without messing around with silly hats ;)
  • edited May 2010
    Haha true. It's just that all these puzzles where you're supposed to rely on other people put in life-or-death situation and still making the most reasonable, rational, logical choice... well, it's pretty inapplicable to real life.
    Although I guess the whole premise is as well.
  • edited May 2010
    In real life, if you were in a jungle where you knew there were evil tribes, you'd pack a gun. Seriously.
  • edited May 2010
    This puzzle is definitely more applicable to game theory than it is to being a real puzzle, to be sure. =P
  • edited May 2010
    Okay, okay, then I've got one. Just let me remember it properly.

    You're one of three people in a triangle, each with a gun. The first one is a super shot, you're pretty sure he's like 100% sure to kill whoever he shoots. The second one is a good shot, about 50-50. And then there is you, and you're a lousy shot. 25-33% chance to kill whoever you shoot.

    Only one of the three of you can leave alive. To even the odds a bit more, you have to shoot one after the other, the worse shooter first. So you get to go first. You have to fire your gun, then the next worst shot will fire, and so on until there is only one person alive.
    The super shot is in front of you and on your left, the good shot in front of you and on your right (you're positioned at the corers of an equilateral triangle)
    Where do you shoot to have the highest possible chance of survival?
  • edited May 2010
    The super shot and the so-so shot are going to go after each other first. The so-so shot is sure to attack the super shot because the super shot goes after him because the so-so shot is more of a threat than I am.

    Shoot the super shot. Combined with the so-so shot, you have the best chance of wiping out the greatest threat. If the so-so shot is killed, then the super shot has nobody to shoot at but you, so succeeding in killing the so-so shot is a death sentence.
  • edited May 2010
    No, you should deliberately miss with your first shot. That way you are guaranteed to get another turn and one person will have died in the meantime.
  • edited May 2010
    Harald has it right. Shoot in the air or between the two guys, miss on purpose. Next the so-so shot with act, and he'll shoot super-shot. Either he kills him and then it's your turn, or he doesn't and super-shot kills him after that and it's your turn.
    Either way you'll be left with only one enemy and it will be your turn to shoot. While if you shoot one of them and kill them, it will be the next person's turn and you'll be their only target.
  • edited May 2010
    Here's a nice one for you:
    A deck of 52 cards is randomly shuffled, and 10 of the cards a randomly face up somewhere in the deck. Deal the deck into 2 piles such that each pile has the same number of face up cards. You are blind.
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