Source: Sterling, Brain Teasers, p. 30

[ManDay]

As for the first post in this thread I'll try to give the answers as I've never done it:

1.) Pull the cork in
2.) She was on foot
3.) Throw it upwards
4.) They are not facing each other, got their eyes closed - etc. Or the table is stacked vertically
5.) True. Only two capital T
6.) Train B.
7.) A bridge, probably?
8.) None
9.) One time. Afterwards it's 30 you are subtracting from
10.) Nelly
11.) These where gradmother, mother and daughter
12.) None. The boat soars
13.) Put sand in the bags so they would get heavier
14.) "Where would you send people, asking you the way to Trueville, if you were from the other town?" Then walk the opposite way.
15.) Hm... the cheaper one?
16.) One cat, one dog

100%? Well, I will check the answers.

€: As regards 15.) I didn't get the point. I understood that the barber "did", not "has" a bad haircut. Well I'd have answered this correctly, too, if I just have had read it correctly.

 

[K.J.Healey]

for 9 I can subtract 2 from 32 at LEAST seventeen times, watch:
32-2 = 30
32-2 = 30
32-2 = 30 and so forth.

 

[ƒ(x)]

1. a) Drill a hole in either the cork or the bottle.
b) The cork has a hole in it.
c) The cork was never actually pushed into the opening of the bottle; turn the bottle upside down.
d) Push the cork all the way through the opening of the bottle.
e) Heat the bottle, expanding the glass--or melting it for that matter.

2. She was not driving down the street.

3. You throw the ball straight up in the air.

4. One is sitting on top of the desk, the other under; the desk blocks their views.

5. True. The question is asked whether or not there are two T's in the phrase, meaning capital T's.

6. Assuming that they might side by side, they will be the same distance from the coast.

7. There was a bridge across the river, or some other means of travel--such as a boat--that prevented Scuffy from getting wet.

8. There is not dirt, a hole is empty space.

9. Assuming that you do not add two after subtracting, you can only subtract once; after you subtract 2 from 32, you are no longer subtracting from 32.

10. If the dog's names were Blackie, Whitey, and Brownie, then the fourth dog's name must be Nelly.

11. The shoppers were grandmother, mother, and daughter.

12. None of the rungs will be underwater since the boat is floating.

13. He took a different route, one that did not involve passing a stream, to the market.

14. He could ask her if she was a girl--or any other obvious question for that matter. If she said yes then she was from Trueville, or vice versa.

15. Go to the barber with the bad haircut. His shop is covered in hair, indicating that he has recently had a lot of customers and has not had sufficient time to cut his own hair. A second way to look at this is that a barber cannot cut his own hair. From this fact one can deduce that the barber with the clean shop gave the other his haircut.

16. She has one cat and one dog.

 

[regor60]

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this before but it's quite lateral.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/365143

8mb: takes a while to load, fiendishly impossible and addictive flash quiz.

For those who haven't got time to wait, here's one that's not too hard.

End of day light saving's...clock gets pushed back an hour, oila not late

 

[texasblitzem]

OK, here's one:

A man walks into a restaurant, orders a bowl of soup. He takes one spoonful, pays and exits the restaurant. Outside, he pulls out a gun and shoots himself dead.

You amy ask any Yes/No questons you want.

I just found this thread but no answer was ever given!
why did the guy kill himself Dave?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I just found this thread but no answer was ever given!
why did the guy kill himself Dave?

A ship sinks in the ocean and three survivors are washed up on the shore of a deserted island. They have nothing to eat, but albatross are abundant. For many days, they try to catch an albatross without success. Near starvation, one survivor kills another and cooks him up in a soup. He serves it to the other survivor telling him that it is albatross soup. When he asks what happened to the other survivor, he tells him that he went crazy, tried to swim away and drowned. Years later, after they are rescued, he sees a sign on a restaurant saying 'Albatross soup'.

A man walks into a restaurant, orders a bowl of soup. He takes one spoonful, pays and exits the restaurant. Outside, he pulls out a gun and shoots himself dead.

For he realized by the taste that he was a cannibal.

 

[texasblitzem]

Oh, well now that's a perfectly plausible situation. Thanks!

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

When we eat out, there's a 5 star restaurant in town, Chez Lounge, that I like a great deal. But a new 4 star restaurant, Le Roi de la Hache, opened up nearby, and my wife dragged me over there, my fingernails scraping the ground as we went. Determined to make the best of a bad situation, I ordered a roasted wild mushroom soup with pickled spring onions and toasted almond. Much to my dismay, it was better than the chow you get at Chez. I don't think I'm going to kill myself over it, but I have a friend who has never been inside of a 4-star and he just might.

 

[thrill3rnit3]

Where can I find these kinds of puzzles online? Any links to specific websites?

 

[27Thousand]

Where can I find these kinds of puzzles online? Any links to specific websites?

Thrill, here's an online Lateral Thinking Forum you may like http://www.lateralpuzzles.com/

Here is an online website where you have the option of asking for hints:
http://www.iriddler.com/riddles/puzzles/lights.htm

Here's an "aha" puzzle website
http://www.ahapuzzles.com/

Another website http://www.puzz.com/lateral.html

These are just a few.

 

[Office_Shredder]

I've got one I made up myself that's a bit more lateral than normal maybe. A group of gangsters are playing a high stakes game of Texas Hold 'Em. Each player starts with 26 chips, small blind one chip, big blind two chips. The first hand, Bob calls the big blind, then folds. On the next hand, as the dealer shuffles he starts counting his chips. As the dealer finishes shuffling, Bob finishes counting, says "Whoops, must have dropped one" and ducks down under the table. He springs back up with a gun in his hand and...

get shot by the dealer. What happened?

 

[texasblitzem]

Did Bob see the dealer cheat(by his shuffling technique), but then the dealer noticed that Bob saw him cheat so beat him to the draw?

 

[Soca fo so]

How about this:

The loser of the first hand has to duel with the dealer, who is a crack shot from 23 yards and lousy from 24. The game is that the dealer "shuffles" the amount of yards equal to the amount of chips the loser has left, turns and fires, all while the loser counts his chips in a regular rhythm. The rhythm is set so that the dealer shuffles one yard for every one count (a second or whatever). So Bob, knowing he has a decent chance against the dealer from 24 yards, decides to call the big blind and fold leaving him with 24 chips. Now Bob has something else up his sleeve, he decides to play dirty and pretend to drop a chip, however this strategy backfires fatally when the dealer totally misses and shoots Bob as he is getting up.

Any good?

Or alternatively, Bob ducks under the table using an extra one count, but doesn't figure on the delay in the bullet reaching him which was also a one count.

 

[hunterddog]

2. she was on foot
3.throw the ball directly up
4. they where facing the opposite ways
5. true there is only Two capital T's
7. the dog used a bridge
8. it'z a hole there is no dirt in it
9. infinate ammounts becaus of the -numbers
10. nelly. because there was only four dogs three with names of colours and nelly
11. The "middle" woman was the daughter of the oldest woman and the mother of the youngest
12. All of them: as the water rises, so does the boat, and thus so does the ladder
13. he put large sacks of cotton on the donkey, when cotton gets wet it weights a lot
14. Ask "Which way do I go to get to your town?" and go whichever way he's directed.
15. The East Street barbershop, because the barber from West Street must get his hair cut at the East Street shop, and his hair looks better.
16. 1 cat, 1 dog.

Report Post Reply With Quote

 

[James008]

2: She was walking?
6: They are the same distance from the west coast
8: Since it is a hole there should be no dirt left in it.
9: As many times as you want.
10: Nelly
11: One of the mothers is the daughter of the other mother.
15: The barber with the bad haircut. Since the other barber must have given him that bad cut.

This puzzle can be transferred as a Flash quiz to engage more people. A sample like this is more appealling.

 

[micromass]

Here's a fun one:

A man walks into a bar and order a glass of water. The bartender takes a gun and shoots. The man dies.

What happened? You can ask yes/no questions all you want

 

[The legend]

Here's a fun one:

A man walks into a bar and order a glass of water. The bartender takes a gun and shoots. The man dies.

What happened? You can ask yes/no questions all you want

that's pretty easy.

man has hiccups...wants water to stop them. Bartender is a clever guy.

 

[micromass]

Correct! I guess that was a bit to easy

 

[The legend]

here's another easy one

A truck-driver was turning left into a one-way street the wrong way. Halfway down, he was seen by a policeman, who made no attempt to stop him.

Why?

 

[micromass]

Some possibilities:

- The truck driver was walking.
- The truck driver was the head of the maffia and the police was to scared to stop him.
- The truck driver was family to the officer.
- The police officer lost his speech and was unable to stop him.

 

[Millacol88]

here's another easy one

A truck-driver was turning left into a one-way street the wrong way. Halfway down, he was seen by a policeman, who made no attempt to stop him.

Why?

Maybe he turned without signaling (i.e. the "wrong way"). The police officer halfay down the street wouldn't have seen it?

 

[The legend]

Some possibilities:

- The truck driver was walking.

Correct! this is the actual answer.

- The truck driver was the head of the maffia and the police was to scared to stop him.

I gave this answer when i was first asked (except mafia was gang-leader in my sentence)...and it yet remains my favorite one

 

[regor60]

Correct! this is the actual answer.

:

It's not the wrong way if you're a pedestrian, only if you're a driver

 

[micromass]

It's not the wrong way if you're a pedestrian, only if you're a driver

Yes, that's why it was an excellent lateral thinking puzzle!

 

[crawler666]

Question 1.
How bout just smashing the bottle

 

[micromass]

Question 1.
How bout just smashing the bottle

Yes, except that it specifically says not to break the bottle

 

[BeetsMe]

"Dennis hated doing the laundry, so his mother told him that if he was out after 1am, then for each 15 minutes he was late he'd have to do one extra load of laundry. However one day he arrived home half an hour after 1am, but he waited outside for 30 more minutes before going in. Why would he do that?"

The answer for this one, please.

 

[davee123]

I'm guessing daylight savings time, but I doubt his mother would let him off the hook quite so easily.

DaveE

 

[nismaratwork]

"Dennis hated doing the laundry, so his mother told him that if he was out after 1am, then for each 15 minutes he was late he'd have to do one extra load of laundry. However one day he arrived home half an hour after 1am, but he waited outside for 30 more minutes before going in. Why would he do that?"

The answer for this one, please.

With so few constraints... couldn't disobedience simply be the cause?

 

[KCW]

If he waits for 30 minutes, the 15 minute sets would occur "after the 2.00 AM hour" and not "after the 1.00 AM hour".