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Lateral Thinking Thread

Pighead · 2005-04-07 09:55:37

1) A carrot a scarf and five pieces of coal are lying on a lawn. No-one deliberately put them there, but there is a perfectly logical reason for it. What? 2) In a large wooden barn, a dead man is hanging from a rafter. The rope around his neck is 10 feet long, his feet are three feet from the ground. He is 20 feet off the…

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#62 11-04-2005 06:34PM

Cianos

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I havent looked at other peoples replies cuz I dont want to spoil it for myself. A few of these I heard before aswell. Shouldnt people PM answers instead? Maybe in the future. Anyway, here goes. I'm stuck on two of them.

1. Snowman
2. He had a block of ice which melted
3. Mr Smith was kept awake by Mr. Jones snoring?
4. The guy was on a fishing trip and said "It was this big"
5. They were not playing eachother
6. It was a swimsuit competition after the results were announced. Girls are weird.
7. The dreamer was the security guard who fell asleep on the job.
8. Dont know yet
9. He was a window cleaner and jumped through window into the office.
10. They were fish in a bowl.
11. Dont know yet
12. Dirty face saw clean face and thought thats what they looked like, and vice versa

I love riddles

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#63 12-04-2005 07:26AM

Blitzkrieger

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Pighead wrote:

2)
his feet are three feet from the ground. He is 20 feet off the ground.

Contradiction? Must not be phrased properly.

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#64 12-04-2005 12:22PM

Steveire

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Line up the golf ball machines and number them 1 to 6. Take one ball from machine 1, 2 balls from machine 2 etc. The total number of balls is 21. If we let x be the weight of a normal golf ball, the weight of the selection will be (21+n)x, (i think sorry for using crazy letters) where n is a number between 1 and 6, and it indicates the faulty machine.
I'm very tired right now.

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#65 12-04-2005 02:22PM

tadhgrrr

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capn midnight probably got it but steviere explained it well done!

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#66 12-04-2005 02:23PM

grimsbymatt

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Steveire wrote:

Line up the golf ball machines and number them 1 to 6. Take one ball from machine 1, 2 balls from machine 2 etc. The total number of balls is 21. If we let x be the weight of a normal golf ball, the weight of the selection will be (21+n)x, (i think sorry for using crazy letters) where n is a number between 1 and 6, and it indicates the faulty machine.
I'm very tired right now.

You have two unknowns and only one measurement here, thus you can't work out for sure what x & n are. You need to know the weight the balls should be to be able to solve this (presumably the original post should have stipulated that we know this already).

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#67 12-04-2005 06:28PM

Steveire

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yeah i guess i assumed that without thinking about it. It's the only way you can solve the problem AFAIC.

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#68 16-04-2005 05:59AM

PullMyFinger!

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Havent read all this thread but what I did was interesting. Lateral Thinking board maybe?

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#69 16-04-2005 12:21PM

Steveire

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I dont think there's enogh interest for a lat thinkn board. Here's another anyway:
A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins, and they were not adopted. How could this be so?

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#70 16-04-2005 12:25PM

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Steveire wrote:

I dont think there's enogh interest for a lat thinkn board. Here's another anyway:
A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins, and they were not adopted. How could this be so?

They were two of a set of triplets, or quadruplets etc.

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#71 16-04-2005 02:32PM

Steveire

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Here's a silly little one:
Two bishops are in bed together. Neither is gay. What's going on?

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#72 16-04-2005 02:57PM

Blisterman

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They're chess pieces?
They're Platonic friends?

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#73 16-04-2005 03:43PM

Capt'n Midnight

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type of flower ..

This rich guy wants a house with no north facing windows. An architect designs him one and every wall has a window. After it's built the guy goes to see the house and he notices a bear.

What colour is the bear ?

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#74 16-04-2005 03:46PM

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White?

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#75 16-04-2005 03:51PM

Capt'n Midnight

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Of course it is.

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#76 16-04-2005 03:52PM

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Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Of course it is.

:rolleyes:

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#77 16-04-2005 03:56PM

Capt'n Midnight

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This is a good one.

You're being held in a room, on the wall are three light switches A,B,C one of them controls a light bulb in a different room. You will be taken to that room later on. To survive you all you have to do is tell the person in that room which switch controls the light.

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#78 17-04-2005 01:19PM

Steveire

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Here's a silly little one:
Two bishops are in bed together. Neither is gay. What's going on?

They are Mr and Mrs Bishop.

What colour is the bear ?

How do you know its a polar bear? is he afraid of them and wants not to see them, therefore no windows?

You're being held in a room, on the wall are three light switches A,B,C one of them controls a light bulb in a different room. You will be taken to that room later on. To survive you all you have to do is tell the person in that room which switch controls the light.

Flip A, leave it on for a long time. flip it off. Flip B on. When you enter the room either the bulb will be on, because B controls it, it will be off and warm if A controls it, it will be off and cold if C controls it.

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#79 17-04-2005 01:21PM

jonnybadd

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Steveire wrote:

How do you know its a polar bear? is he afraid of them and wants not to see them, therefore no windows?

I think its something along the lines of the only place you could build a house with no north facing windows is at the north pole, ie the northenest place on the planet, so therefore the bear he sees is a polar bear and white

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#80 17-04-2005 05:25PM

PullMyFinger!

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Steveire wrote:

I dont think there's enogh interest for a lat thinkn board.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=517

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#81 17-04-2005 06:05PM

Steveire

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PullMyFinger! wrote:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=517

touché.
\me eats hat.

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#82 17-04-2005 08:53PM

Blisterman

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Ahem, look at my sig.

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#83 18-04-2005 12:04AM

ExOffender

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A man in a restaurant complained of a fly in his coffee. the waiter took the cup away, promising a fresh cup. He returned a fewminutes later. The man complained that it was the same cup of coffee. He was right. How could he know?

Because he takes sugar.

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#84 18-04-2005 12:26AM

Skud

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tadhgrrr wrote:

heres a puzzle for ya maybe you'll think its an easy one...took me a good bit to get it though.

Six identical looking golf ball making machines produce identical looking golf balls. However one of the machines is faulty and produces golf balls that are twice as heavy as the others.

You have a weighing scales but can only make 1 measurement on it before it dies (stoopid scales).

How do you figure out which golf ball machine makes the heaviest balls?

You submerse them in water and whichever displaces the most water is heaviest?

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#85 18-04-2005 12:30AM

*Angel*

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Skud wrote:

You submerse them in water and whichever displaces the most water is heaviest?

If they were near enough to the weight of a normal golf ball they would all sink, and therefore displace the same amount of water (as they are of same size).

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#86 19-04-2005 12:52PM

Steveire

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4 men are buried up to their necks in sand in the arrangement shown in the attachment...
They will be killed unless one of them shouts out the colour of his hat. They know that there are two white and two black hats. They are not allowed talk to each other and they have 2 minutes to come up with an answer. A is behind a wall. After 1 minute, D correctly gives the colour of his hat. How does he know for certain what colour it is?

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#87 19-04-2005 03:16PM

][cEMAN**

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ExOffender wrote:

Because he takes sugar.

Do you normally make a habit of drinking your tea/coffee BEFORE you put your sugar in? Seems unlikely to me. So if he puts in sugar again before he drinks, he'll taste sugar either way.

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#88 19-04-2005 03:20PM

][cEMAN**

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Steveire wrote:

4 men are buried up to their necks in sand in the arrangement shown in the attachment...
They will be killed unless one of them shouts out the colour of his hat. They know that there are two white and two black hats. They are not allowed talk to each other and they have 2 minutes to come up with an answer. A is behind a wall. After 1 minute, D correctly gives the colour of his hat. How does he know for certain what colour it is?

He flicks the hat off his head and looks?

or

The person at the other side of the wall screams out the colour of his hat. If he calls white and doesn't hear a bang, D knows his has to be black (he can already see 1 other white). If A calls out black, and D hears a bang, then he was wrong, and he knows that it had to be white. Therefore his own is black.

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#89 19-04-2005 03:24PM

seamus

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Steveire wrote:

4 men are buried up to their necks in sand in the arrangement shown in the attachment...
They will be killed unless one of them shouts out the colour of his hat. They know that there are two white and two black hats. They are not allowed talk to each other and they have 2 minutes to come up with an answer. A is behind a wall. After 1 minute, D correctly gives the colour of his hat. How does he know for certain what colour it is?

Is it not that C calls out that his is white? The logic being that he can see B's is black, so if his was black, then D would call out "white", but since D isn't sure, C knows his must be white.

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#90 19-04-2005 04:33PM

Canis Lupus

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"A man stood looking through a window 10 storeys up. Suddenly, he opened the window and leapt through it. It was a sheer drop outside the window to the ground. He didnt use a parachute, land on water or another soft surface, yet he was completely unhurt. Explain?"

I remember this one. The man is a window cleaner, he opens the window and jumps inside... bada bing (didnt read entire thread so this may have already been answered)

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#91 19-04-2005 04:44PM

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Canis Lupus wrote:

(didnt read entire thread so this may have already been answered)

Yeah about 86,000 times.

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