Do you often doubt your choices? Like when getting dressed, do you not know which shirt looks better on you, the pink or the blue one? Then these riddles are just for you. They won’t just help you make the right decisions but they’ll also give you the right arguments for them.
We have prepared some seemingly simple riddles that won’t take much of your time but will teach you how to make the right choices.
1.
In the middle of a party, two guys named Eric and Geroge started arguing and they were almost ready to fight. The reason for the argument was over a girl named Blaire, the organizer of the party. Both guys showed interest in her but she hadn’t responded to either of them yet. Blaire made up a game where the winner gets the right to kiss her and take her on a date.
The rules are simple:
- Both guys sit at a perfectly round table.
- Both of them have coins that they should use to cover the table.
- The coins must not intersect or hang over the desk.
- The first player has more chances to win if he places the first coin correctly.
- The winner is the one who covers the table with coins first.
George is confident about winning, so he let Eric go first.
Question: What strategy should Eric choose to win?
2.
Clark was in an accident and lost his memory. His doctor told him that he had good news and bad news for him. The good news was that his memory would be restored, and the bad news was that it would restore only partially. After the hospital, Clark went home. He lived alone. He had a burglar alarm at home but he forgot about it. When Clark came in, the alarm went off and the guards came. Unfortunately, only the owner of the apartment knew the password but he forgot it too. Clark found a piece of paper containing tips to the password which he had designed himself.
None of the people could understand the note. That’s why the guards sent their man who knew a thing or two about passwords. His name was Henry. He read the notes:
- The password is 5 digits.
- The fourth digit is bigger than the second one by 4.
- The third is smaller than the second by 3.
- The first is 3 times bigger than the fifth.
- Three pairs of digits equal 11 together.
Question: What 5-digit code should be entered to finally turn off the alarm?
3.
Harry and his friends went camping in the forest. Just like all regular tourists, they told each other scary stories near the fire in the evening. All the guys fell asleep but Harry couldn’t. When he finally did fall asleep, he dreamed of something very unusual… or did he?
Harry’s dream was very realistic. He got lost in the forest and found a strange cave. It was late and he was tired, so he entered it and decided to spend the night. When he entered the place, he found the King of the Goblins. The King was really happy that Harry came. Nobody had visited him for a very long time. Harry started running, but the exit was gone — there were only walls.
These were the King’s conditions:
- To leave the cave, Harry had to pick one of three candies.
- Two of the candies were poisonous and only one was safe.
- The King was kind so he would help Harry. When Harry took one candy, the King would throw away one of the poisonous candies and ask him to make the choice again.
Harry picked the orange one. The King said that the blue one was definitely poisonous and threw it away. Then he asked Harry if he would change his decision or not.
Question: Did Harry change his choice and why?
Answers
1.
Eric needs to place the first coin in the center on the table and then mirror every next move of the opponent. So eventually, the opponent will run out of room sooner and Eric will win.
2.
The password is 65292.
How did Henry know? a, b, c, d, and e are the five digits we don’t know. Then:
- d = b + 4, “b” can’t be bigger than 5.
- c = b — 3, “b” can’t be less than 3.
- a = 3 * е, so “е” = 1, 2, or 3, “а” = 3, 6, or 9.
- There are three pairs of digits which equal 11 together. “a + e” can equal 11, because we know that “b” = either 4, or 5.
- Other pairs of digits for “b”, “c”, “d”. By hot-decking, we check other options: 3; 0; 7 ≠ 11; 4; 1; 8 ≠ 11. So, these digits are wrong.
- The digits we need are 5; 2; and 9 and two more pairs which equal 11 with the other digits being 6 and 2.
- The three pairs that equal 11 are 6+5; 2+9; and 9+2.
3.
Harry changed his original choice and picked the yellow one. After choosing it, he woke up in his tent and realized that making a choice is a huge responsibility that can influence a person’s future dramatically.
Why did he make this decision?
The other two candies gave him a 50/50 chance and Harry thought it was best not to change his decision. But the orange candy was two times more likely to kill Harry than the yellow one:
- When he chose the orange one, his chance of surviving was 1 out of 3. And his chance of dying was 2 out of 3. When Harry took the poisonous candy, the safe one was still on the table.
- When the King threw away the blue candy, he didn’t say anything about the candy in Harry’s hand. So the chance of being safe was still 1 out 3.
- So, if there was a safe candy on the table, it was the yellow one.
Even though Harry picked the poisonous candy in the first place, he changed his choice and stayed alive.
