Top Math Riddles with Answers
Five hundred begins it, five hundred ends it,
Five in the middle is seen;
First of all figures, the first of all letters,
Take up their stations between.
Join all together, and then you will bring
Before you the name of an eminent king.
With the numbers 123456789, make them add up to 100. They must stay in the same order. You can use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Remember, they have to stay in the same order.
The ages of a father and son add up to 66. The father's age is the son's age reversed. How old could they be? (3 possible solutions).
Jack is a farmer and owns some chickens. One day, he took a basket of fresh eggs to the market to sell.
The first person bought half of all the eggs in the basket and half an egg.
Then, the second person bought half of the remaining eggs and half an egg.
Later, the third person bought half of the remaining eggs and half an egg.
Now Jack's basket has only 1 egg left.
If no eggs were broken in the process, how many eggs did he originally have in his basket?
Of all the numbers whose literal representations in capital letters consists only of straight line segments (for example, FIVE), only one number has a value equal to the number of segments used to write it.
Which number has this property?
If you go to the movies and you're paying, is it cheaper to take one friend to the movies twice, or two friends to the movies at the same time?
I am four times as old as my daughter. In 20 years time I shall be twice as old as her. How old are we now?
There are 2 ducks in front of 2 other ducks. There are 2 ducks behind 2 other ducks. There are 2 ducks beside 2 other ducks. How many ducks are there?
Walking home one day, you take a short cut along the train tracks. The tracks cross a narrow bridge over a deep gorge. At the point you are 3/8 of the way across the bridge, you hear the train whistle somewhere behind you. You charge across the bridge, and jump off the track as the train is about to run you down. As it happens, if you had gone the other way, you would have reached safety just before being run over as well. If you can run ten miles per hour, how fast is the train moving?
You start with 1000 then add 40
add another 1000 then add 30
add another 1000 then add 20
add one more 1000 then add 10
what is your answer?
Four people come to an old bridge in the middle of the night. The bridge is rickety and can only support 2 people at a time. The people have one flashlight, which needs to be held by any group crossing the bridge because of how dark it is.
Each person can cross the bridge at a different rate: one person takes 1 minute, one person takes 2 minutes, one takes 5 minutes, and the one person takes 10 minutes. If two people are crossing the bridge together, it will take both of them the time that it takes the slower person to cross.
Unfortunately, there are only 17 minutes worth of batteries left in the flashlight. How can the four travellers cross the bridge before time runs out?
You want to hire a temporary employee for one month. You offer him reasonable wages, but the employee suggests an alternative. For the first day of work, he will be paid a penny. For the second day, two pennies. For the third day, four pennies. The salary for each subsequent day will be double the previous day's, until the one month term is over. Ignoring the legalities of such a situation, would it be a good idea to accept the potential employee's proposal?
Question: If you randomly choose one of the following answers to this question, what is your chance of getting it right?
A) 50%
B) 25%
C) 0%
D) 25%
A merchant can place 8 large boxes or 10 small boxes into a carton for shipping. In one shipment, he sent a total of 96 boxes. If there are more large boxes than small boxes, how many cartons did he ship?