Medium – Page 2 – Puzzle Prime

A long time ago there was a kingdom, isolated from the world. There was only one way to and from the kingdom, namely through a long bridge. The king ordered the execution of anyone caught fleeing the kingdom on the bridge and the banishment of anyone caught sneaking into the kingdom.

The bridge was guarded by one person, who was taking a 10-minute break inside his cabin every round hour. Fifteen minutes were needed for a person to cross the bridge and yet, one woman managed to escape the kingdom. How did she do it?

SOLUTION

Once the guard entered the cabin, the woman started crossing the bridge for 9 minutes, and then turned around and pretended to be going in the opposite direction for one more minute. When the guard caught her, she said she was trying to enter the kingdom, so he banished her away.

Unknown Author November 1, 2023

3 Comments

Unconscious and Bleeding

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Lateral

Difficulty: Medium

A man is found unconscious in front of a store at two in the morning. His head is bleeding and there is a brick laying next to him. When the police arrive, they carry the man to jail. Why did they arrest him?

SOLUTION

The man was a burglar who tried to break the store’s glass with the brick. The glass turned out to be bullet proof, so the brick bounced back and hit him in the head, knocking him out.

Unknown Author October 25, 2023

1 Comment

Dr. Riesen’s Rebuses 2

Section: Casual Puzzles Category: Rebus

Difficulty: Medium

Can you figure out what common phrases these rebuses represent?

SOLUTION

The answers are:

A drop in the bucket
First edition
Kick the bucket
Feeling under the weather
Don’t cut corners
Pillow talk
Don’t cry over spilled milk
Jump the gun
Spill the beans
A piece of cake
Back to square one
Hold your horses
Catch my drift
Let the cat out of the bag
Face the music
Barking at the wrong tree

Guillaume Riesen October 22, 2023

0 Comments

Pretty Words

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Insight

Difficulty: Medium Tags: Words

Can you recognize the four words below?

ZO-ZO
ZOOZ
OON
ZCZ

SOLUTION

If you rotate the screen by 90°, you will read vertically:

ONION
NOON
ZOO
NUN

Unknown Author October 19, 2023

5 Comments

A String Around a Rod

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Medium Tags: Geometry

A string is wound around a circular rod with circumference 10 cm and length 30 cm. If the string goes around the rod exactly 4 times, what is its length?

SOLUTION

Imagine the circular rod is actually a paper roll and the string is embedded inside the paper. When we unroll it, we get a paper rectangle 30cm×40cm with the string embedded along the diagonal. Using the Pythagorean theorem, we find that the length of the string is 50cm.

Unknown Author October 7, 2023

0 Comments

A Heart That Doesn’t Beat

Section: Casual Puzzles Category: Riddle

Difficulty: Medium

I have a heart that doesn’t beat.
I have a mouth that doesn’t speak.
I have a head that doesn’t think.

What am I?

SOLUTION

The answer is ARTICHOKE.

Unknown Author October 4, 2023

0 Comments

An Ant’s Path

Section: Brain Teasers Category: Mathematics

Difficulty: Medium

An ant is positioned at one of the vertices of a cube and wants to get to the opposite vertex. If the edges of the die have length 1, what is the shortest distance the ant needs to travel?

SOLUTION

We unfold a cube to get a cross-shaped figure. Then, the problem is to find the shortest path between two points separated by a horizontal distance of 2 units and a vertical distance of 1 unit.

It is easy to see that the path in question is the one passing through the middle of the edge between the start and end points, and which has a distance of √5.

Unknown Author September 19, 2023

5 Comments

Dr. Riesen’s Rebuses 1

Section: Casual Puzzles Category: Rebus

Difficulty: Medium

Can you figure out what these love-related expressions these rebuses represent?

SOLUTION

The answers are:

Be mine
Love at first sight
True love forever
Love is in the air
Romance
Sweet nothings
XOXO
Written in the stars
Sweetheart
Love birds
Heart throb
Pucker up
Love is love
You complete me
Lover’s gaze
Love struck

Guillaume Riesen September 16, 2023

2 Comments