Black is down significant material, but has a strong series of moves to turn things around. Can you find it?
Continue reading “Chess Tactic Puzzle”
Brain Teasers and Puzzles
Brain teasers, puzzles, riddles, and other challenges
Food with 5 Letters
I am a food with 5 letters.
Take away my first letter, and I become a form of energy.
Take away my first two letters, and I become something you need to live.
Rearrange my last three letters, and I become something you drink.
Continue reading “Food with 5 Letters”Eight Eights
Can you arrange eight eights so that the numbers add up to 1000?
Continue reading “Eight Eights”Make Five into Four
Move exactly 3 matches to make these five squares into four squares of equal size, without any matches left over.
Continue reading “Make Five into Four”Fake Coins Proof
You are a rare coins expert and have determined there are 7 fake coins out of 14 gold coins. Now you need to prove to the judge which ones are fake.
It is known that that real coins all weigh the same, fake coins all weigh the same, and fake coins weigh less than real ones (but are otherwise identical).
Using a traditional double-pan balance scale just 3 times, can you prove exactly which of the 14 coins are fake?
View SolutionFirst to 100
You and a friend play “first to 100”, a game in which you start with 0, and you each take turns adding an integer between 1 and 10 to the sum. Whoever makes the sum reach 100 is the winner.
Is there a winning strategy? If so, what is it?
Continue reading “First to 100”Rebus Puzzle 15
What common word or phrase is this rebus referring to?
Click to reveal solution
Cutting corners
Pulley Puzzle
In the pulley puzzle diagram below, there is a pulley attached to a scale. One side of the pulley is attached to a weight and the other side is attached to the ground.
If the scale reads 100g, does the weight weigh 50g, 100g, or 200g?
Assume the pulley and rope has no weight (the scale is already adjusted to account for these), and that the whole system is in equilibrium (nothing is moving).
Note: this puzzle is best solved with a bit of basic physics knowledge, but there is also an intuitive solution, so give it a shot.
Continue reading “Pulley Puzzle”Escape the Maze
In this maze of 8×8 rooms, each room has an arrow that points up, down, left, or right – and it will only let you move to the adjacent room in the direction of the arrow.
After you leave a room, or if you are unable to move because there is no adjacent room in the direction of the arrow (i.e., the arrow points outside the maze but there is no exit), the arrow in that room will rotate 90 degrees clockwise.
You start in the bottom left room, and the only exit is the right door in the top-right room.
Prove that no matter what the initial arrangement is, you will eventually escape the maze.
View SolutionBlue and Red Maze
In this maze, you must alternate going through blue and red doors – in other words, you cannot go through two blue doors in a row or two red doors in a row.
Entering through the blue door in the top left, can you find your way through the maze and exit through the red door in the top right?
