Brain Teasers & Riddles

[Kim]

Anyone want to take a shot at these?

1.

EAR
NOTHING
EAR


2.

N
W
O
D

3.

The one who makes it sells it.
The one who buys it doesn't use it.
The one who's using it doesn't know he's using it.
What is it?


4.

How many letters are in the alphabet?
(Note - the answer isn't the obvious!)

5.

A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, "If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper then you have to give me $50, but if I cannot, I will pay you $50."

The boy looked around and saw no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he'll just say he weighs more or less.

In the end the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet?

[Kim]

Anybody? Come on, someone at least attempt one!

Guests, you can play too - not just the members!

[Patrick]

1 - nothing between the ears?
2 - upside down
3 - coffin
4 - 11
5 - he wrote out "your exact weight"

[Kim]

DAMN... you are good! 5/5!

[Patrick]

thanks... see what happens when you spend to much time on the internet.

I think I've seen 4 out of 5 in emails or somewhere over the years. Took a second to remember the answers.

[WillTravel]

For #5, I had something different in mind. The man did not say whether he was writing the boy's exact weight at that moment.

So - I applied a version of the Mean Value Theorem to this problem. At some point in the boy's life, he would have weighed (for example), exactly 12 pounds. That would be obvious since he was born at (say) 8 pounds and is now (say) 60 pounds. At some point in his life, he was exactly 12 pounds, even if only for a moment.