Questions tagged [word-problem]
A mathematical puzzle that's stated in words, usually in terms of a story or a situation that dresses the problem up.
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How Many Coins Were There
There were three men in a boat. They received an amount of coins in a chest from 200 - 300 as a reward for surviving the storm without damaging anything. One night, the first man thought that he would ...
- 2,022
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Ernie and the Island of Stability
Unfortunately, it appears that I may have misled you a little in this puzzle (as you probably know - my memory of events isn't always perfect). When I was writing it, I re-checked the Kzijekistanian ...
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Ernie and the Calendar
I had taken an extended summer break over the Christmas New Year period but finally returned to the city at the end of January, feeling relaxed and tanned. I was looking forwards to getting back in ...
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Find the width of the river
You find yourself with a friend on a completely deserted (devoid of objects or people) and flat plane. The only thing of note is a wide river; you can just manage to see the other side of it. There is ...
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A village of pick pockets!
There is a small village of 100 people. An unknown number of these villagers are pick pockets. Each day, you're allowed to take as many villagers as you wish out of the village. When a pick pocket has ...
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The mad king and the 100 men who each have to guess the colour of their own hat [duplicate]
The following is the puzzle that I am trying to figure out. I know the "expected solution of 99". But honestly, I think this puzzle is flawed. How exactly can each wise man know the number of hats ...
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I'm stumped on a simple roman numeral puzzle
I was working on this puzzle called cupid which listed a bunch of greek gods. I filled in all the answers in the answer grid which were their roman counterparts. Since these answers were now left ...
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The Mysterious Disappearance of Doctor F. Andrews [Part 1]
This is my first real puzzle, so I hope you enjoy it! Sorry if the writing is a little poor, etc..
You are the unstoppable Detective Joshua Brown, and no puzzle can stand in your way!
The Case:
...
- 1,002
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Ernie and the Mystery of Madame Mu
Quite a few years ago (I can't remember the date but it was obviously some time after I first met Ernie at a New Years Eve party in 2001) I got an unexpected phone call late one afternoon. It was ...
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Mysterious Murder Mystery 4
The sky is dark, filled with black clouds. The sun, high in the sky, still shining, trying to cut through the dark, thick, black clouds. The moon, slowly turning red, slowly taking over. You hear a ...
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What Am I - Riddle Part 7
In one form I am very tall, in another, elegant
In one form I am happiness, in another, an eyesore
In one form I am metal, in another, paper
In one form Sasaki's lament, in another Greek ingenuity
...
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Guess The Object - What Am I Riddle (Part 5)
Since part 4 is dragging it's feet, What am I?
Puny mortals, I control your very lives!
When I'm angry, you cease motion,
but yield to my envy,
Without me you descend into chaos,
I am ...
- 1,157
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Guess the object - What Am I Riddle (Part 3)
I'm lying down, with a dah-ditty-dah, in the middle of the end,
I'd hang upside-down similarly with my friend,
Were I to flip over, with a dah-ditty-dah, it'd be the middle of the day,
Right way up I ...
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Guess the object - What Am I Riddle (Part 1)
In one form I can stretch to infinity, in another I have a clearly defined limit.
In one form I am very flexible, in another I am exceedingly rigid.
In one form intersections are catastrophic, in ...
- 1,157
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Mysterious Murder Mystery 2
"Take her away!" commands the police officer, as two other officers handcuff the blonde woman. "Good work, Detective! I can see why you were named the number one detective. Keep up the ...
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The Security to the Party [Part 13]
After pretty sick 12 parties, obviously 13th party occured during "Halloween".
Halloween themed party is being held at a local mansion. The host is very rich and his success is because of one thing ~...
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The Comforting Death Message
Linda sadly passes away in a stampede of elephants and when she reaches St. Peter, she is distressed because she doesn't think she'll be buried properly on the family grave plot and having to listen ...
- 1,157
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Can you find me
if you divide my first digit by my last digit then you can find me for ever
If you multiply me by any number equal to or less than my length (but greater than zero) and I will only cycle.
If you ...
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Can you find my friends' birthday
A friend of mine has an interesting birthday.
If you shorten the date month and year and use UK date format, it reads the year in full, his birthday falls on a Friday.
When he is as old as the year ...
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Are you Really Smart
The government has introduced a standardised test to identify dumb people and make them ineligible to apply for any government jobs, a pass in the exam is mandatory for applications in future.
It ...
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First day of school
Here's a pretty easy one.
A new student (a male) was wandering down the hall of his new school looking for the boys' locker room. He asks a nearby student (who happens to be the school bully) to ...
- 5,123
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Can you help the traveller
A traveller decided to explore a square desert. He started from a point on the edge to point B, travelling perpendicular to the edge of the desert he started on.
On reaching B, he then decided to take ...
- 4,992
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Hidden Words in squares
I made up this puzzle, so if you are only keen on answering standard puzzles, I am sorry, I thought its been a dull day for questions so I made up my own
Here is a 7 x 7 squares image with 7 8 letter ...
- 4,992
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A grammatically valid sentence in English containing seven "that"'s in a row?
About 20 years ago on a forum now long gone, someone posted the above question. After people had had a chance to try it, he also posted the answer. I no longer remember the answer but really wish I ...
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Too Many Damn Buffalos [closed]
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"
The sentence above is an actual sentence which makes perfect sense and is not wrong.
The word "Buffalo" has three meanings:
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What's the password?
War has broken out in the kingdom. The king's castle is guarded pretty heavily, by guards with instructions to kill anyone who can't produce the correct password.
Unbeknownst to the guards, the ...
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The Tricky Tunnels!
The king had a mutant rat problem in his kingdom, so he ordered 3 young men to go down under the depth of the ground to find the cause. The 3 young men jumped down the hole, and followed the tunnel. ...
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A Second Benjamin Button
This was inspired by A curious case of Benjamin Button but has a different solution.
In 1980 AD (or 1980 CE, if you prefer), Jack has an age of 20. In 1985 however, he is only 6 years old.
How did ...
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The Laziest Surveyor
The new land surveyor and his boss arrived at the work site, a huge and perfectly flat parking lot. His boss said, "Your first assignment is going to be a tough one. You see this parking lot? It ...
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About Knights and Knaves and their consistency
On an Island of Knights and Knaves (where Knights always tell the truth and Knaves always lie), a Knight will never contradict himself unless some true fact changes. I was wondering: can a Knave ...
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The Ball Factory Worker
A woman works at a ball factory. She's instructed to open up a ball creation kit composed of one red rubber ball and two strips of digit stickers from $0$ through $9$.
She's instructed to do the ...
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Oxford versus Cambridge - a geographical puzzle [closed]
What is a geographical similarity between Cambridge University and Oxford University related to their 'titles'?
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Stranded Nomad Riddle
Background Story
A nomad is injured in the desert. And he can't move, but fortunately an oasis is nearby, and he can stay there for enough time until rescue arrives. But the water is a magical water, ...
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Aside from brute force, how can I solve this puzzle?
Once upon a time, and old lady went to sell her vast quantity of eggs at the local market. When asked how many she had, she replied:
Son, I can't count past 100 but I know that:
If you ...
- 2,393
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How do you solve a word puzzle when you have no idea where to start?
When you're looking at a logical word puzzle, what sorts of clues should you try to look for to solve them? There have been quite a few puzzles posted to this site so far that I spent a few minutes ...
- 2,393
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Winning an unfair game
I came across the following interesting problem today:
A game consists of a sequence of plays; on each play either you or your opponent scores a point, you with probability 𝑝 < 1/2, he with ...
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N pirates steal their share of bananas to the benefit of a monkey
The following is a type of logic / math puzzle I've yet to see on this site. I feel it belongs because the kernel of this problem can be reworked into other puzzles.
$N$ pirates find themselves ...
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The Nuclear Missile Standoff
Three world powers have just entered a nuclear war!
They have been waiting for this day for decades; everyone has their nuclear missiles ready to fire, and only need to choose a target.
The Chinese ...
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Travellers across a desert
This is a problem I once found in a math textbook a tutor used with me.
A group of explorers is trying to get from their base camp to another camp which is eight days' walk through the desert.
...
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End of the world - on a Sunday?
If the end of the world was supposed to come on the first day of a new century, what would be the chances that it would happen on a Sunday?
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100 Prisoners' Names in Boxes
Names in Boxes
The names of 100 prisoners are placed in 100 wooden boxes, one name to a box, and the boxes are lined up on a table in a room.
One by one, the prisoners are led into the room; each may ...
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