NumberCatalog v1 - Riddles in Motion
Our team has indexed a proper quantity of number riddles for your enjoyment. These are translations in progress from offline sources so please be patient...
Note that this page does not fall under the jurisdiction of the council's official list of valid riddles.
If you want to write riddles please reads the rules of riddles first to save yourself some time.
The three friends
Partiritcica Dateotopic, 25/12/23
Once upon a time there were three groups of friends who were good friends to everyone in the group, each of them being:
The one who is 9 years old and has no brother, the one who is 3 years old, and the one who is 1 year old, the other three.
If these 9, 13, and 15 year olds, A, B, and C were standing in a circle and everyone said 1 + 3 = ? . What would have been the final output?
- If they said 4, B said 5.
- If they said 6, B said 17, C said 9, 13.
- If they said 8, C said 20, A said 35.
- If they said 10, C said 28, B said 68.
- If they said 12, A said 6, B said 40.
- If they said 14, B said 68.
- If they said 16, B said 4904, C said 6915.
Given the above information, when did the three friends start dating, starting at age 4 and counting every year forward, or started dating the next day, counting every day forward, or the day after starting, counting every second year forward?
7 Comments
Animal party
John Smith, 25/12/23
There once was a family of animals.
In one house lived 3 cats and a dog.
When it came time to make a bed for the family
The cat jumped down first then followed with the dog.
Then it was the dog and then the cat followed suit
As it turned out they all ran on at the same speed.
So it took 80 seconds to lay down, so
How long was each cat on their own bed?
Answer: 18
1 Comment
That is not right. A cat with two feet runs about 1 meter/second and 60 seconds to get there.
The king's beans
Lopside Livermore, 25/12/25
In the country of Cudib, a group of farmers has planted the beans to harvest.
They have grown more beans than their crops need.
They are so sorry for it, they offer their crops to the king.
How many crops would the king give to the farmers if they asked for half of the crops they have?
Answer: The farmer cannot tell you the number of crops he would have received. (It was decided by the farmers to give an exact number of crops to the king as an even distribution of the beans they have grown.)
The king asked to be told the exact number of crops given to him, so the question could NOT have no answer!
3 Comments
In my opinion, that's not true. If the king was that greedy, they would probably die soon and that would mean they had already eaten more beans. They could have stopped before reaching 60 minutes of the bean plant growing cycle and not even knowing how long that was.
(To see the reason, look at a green bean plant. If it took 60 days to grow and you reach that plant 4 years later, the bean plant is not 20 years old. You’ll need to do an estimate...)
Three-Digit Multiplication: (56*9=)
Polormic Jhetduan, 25/12/21
56 and 9 have many different multiples. For example 47× 70 = 3300
If we write a three-digit number in expanded notation as 41 093 and multiply the number 2 582, it can only be 6000 and not 7 697.
What are the 4 digits in a three-digit multiplication that will yield an answer 57 641 ?
Answer: The two answers 56 136 and 5 7895 1452 yield an answer 56 × 5 3599 for both multiplication.
- 334 446 x 916 254 009
- 302 250 x 512 579 598
- 999 545 799 x 46 512
No Comments
Number Crunchers
Jonatane Cunchmane, 25/12/25
The Number Crunchers are a team of computer programmers, working for the government, to count the number of cars in a city, which has 25,000 people.
They are working on problems and have been working for 48 hours in an effort to get it done. It is often hard to stay on track and get everything done, but people are just too busy to stop and take a few breaths and see if they need to take a break.
As the teams head back home after an all-day marathon, they have a couple of problems:
- They want to make sure that the number they’re working on is as accurate as possible
- They want to work with a group of people who can all work on a problem at the same time (they are a computer group).
- They don't want to be alone after such an exhilarating run. It's a great feeling to have all of your colleagues in one room together.
- They want to make sure they're all well-rested and rested well after a long run.
- The team leaders are having some trouble making a decision about a conference room or conference table that will seat everyone comfortably.
- A large conference room can cause a lot of stress for everyone involved.
- The number of chairs in the conference room is often too many for people to get around.1
- What if there's more to the number than the total number of factors of a number?
- How to know what you're actually dealing with.
This might sound impossible, but there are a few ground truths to follow to solve these problems:
- We have a number cruncher to solve each one. These are our problem-solvers.
- We use our own algorithm to determine whether we need to use "b", "d", and/or "f".
- There's no simple formula that tells us whether or not to use the b-factor, or to use d, or to use f.
- You can try the first of two things, "Is the number prime?". A number that has two or two prime factors, like 9600 = 24, 2^12. No. That's the definition.
- First, you have to find all of the factors, no matter whether you choose a factor and just pick one (as we have here) or to factor up.
- Factorization can be hard and this is the easy part.
- In case you forgot the factor tree. Here it is, using prime factors for easy.
How do they solve these problems?
1 When you sit in a group of 100 people at the front of the room and have 20 people to sit down at a conference table, you have to sit down for the next 40 minutes. You can't afford that. You can't sit down if you don't have enough seats. You can't go around to the back of the room and ask people to get up and move. It is hard to do that when you are standing and moving around the room.
Answer: The 3500's have a seating chart and they are on the right track but they need to be careful to be sure everyone feels comfortable and wants to stay seated. This is where the team members have the job of deciding whether or not to place a conference table or a conference chair or two.
No Comments
Captain's Crew
Kelly Oceanic, 26/01/02
Riddle me this, riddle me that, I am from the ocean, you must see, but I'm not going to tell, What I'm not.
I'm not moving, I am not flying, but I can be a breeze in the wind.
What am I?
Answer: No wind.
2 Comments
Honestly I do not get what I'm reading here.
If it is "What I see"? Answer: No wind? This is true... But it does not have a "wind" in it, as an action.
This is like "If the moon is going to fall to earth in 45 minuets, then the earth will go up". That has wind, and this does not.
That means, you are wrong. This means "The wind will go down" which means, no wind.
You cannot do it.
You have wind.
/Francis
Circling the Square
Jeremy Winkoms, 25/12/28
Riddle me this, riddle me that, if i have the numbers 77, 3999 and 303.364 495, find my average.
Hint: In a circle, you are going to paint two adjacent squares. Find the difference in their area.
The difference of their surface areas is 66.446. What are the two squares?
Answer: 15 10 and 10. The surface areas of a square: (100 - 64) = 36, and (100 - 202) = -132.