A man wanted to get into his work building, but he had forgotten his code. However, he did remember five clues. These are what those clues were:The fifth number plus the third number equals fourteen.The fourth number is one more than the second number.The first number is one less than twice the second number.The second […]

This morning I asked my Maths class to find the areas of two right-angled triangles. Lottie-Lu’s hand shot up immediately, so I asked her the first one.“24,” she announced.She was right (for a change!) and I made the mistake of asking her how she did it.“Easy. Just add all the sides together.”I was about to

A number of children are standing in a circle. They are evenly spaced and the 7th child is directly opposite the 18th child. How many children are there altogether? Answer22; in half of the circle there are 11 children because 18-7=11. Multiply 11×2=22!

Suppose you’re in a hallway lined with 100 closed lockers.You begin by opening every locker. Then you close every second locker. Then you go to every third locker and open it (if it’s closed) or close it (if it’s open). Let’s call this action toggling a locker. Continue toggling every nth locker on pass number

We are brave sailors always riding the seaWe are less than one hundred but as tough as can beWe sleep in three bunkers on top of each otherOur numbers double from one bunker to anotherWe dance in joy all through the nightIn groups of fives under the moonlightLast night twelve of us were swallowed by

When I went to the store, I purchased four items. The following shows the cost of three of the items:$1.50$3.00$4.00The line to the checkout was pretty long, so to quench my boredom I started playing with my pocket calculator while waiting.I found out, to my surprise, that the four prices of the four items I

You have a piece of paper, 10cm by 10cm. Area = 100cm2. For some reason, you need a square piece of paper with an area of 50cm2. Using the paper you have, what’s an easy way of getting the new square? AnswerFold the four corners of the square into the centre. This doubles the thickness

On a 12-hour digital clock, what is the smallest interval between two times that are palindromic (can be read forwards and backwards as the same number)? AnswerThe interval is two minutes, between the times of 9:59 and 10:01.

A monk has a very specific ritual for climbing up the steps to the temple. First, he climbs up to the middle step and meditates for 1 minute. Then he climbs up 8 steps and faces east until he hears a bird singing. Then he walks down 12 steps and picks up a pebble. He

Camp Pineveiw’s cook, Margaret Johnson, was just about to begin preparing the picnic lunch for all the campers. She already knew she needed to fill 55 bowls of the same size and capacity with the same amount of food. When she was done, she decided to read the guidelines for the picnic, just out of

Ms. Arroyo asked the class to see if they could find the sum of the first 50 odd numbers. As everyone settled down to his addition, Terry ran to her and said, “The sum is 2,500.” Ms. Arroyo thought, “Lucky guess,” and gave him the task of finding the sum of the first 75 odd

Read the little poem and answer its question if you can. The number of girls who do wear a watchis double the number who don’t.But the number of boys who do not wear a watchis double the number who do. If I tell you the number of girls in my classis double the number of

After visiting my great Aunt Annie, I travelled home in her old jalopy. The car was old and battered; it had a leak from the petrol tank, and I was stuck in the second gear.This meant that I could only travel along at a steady 30 miles per hour and managed a paltry 20 miles

Diophantus was a Greek mathematician who lived in the third century. He was one of the first mathematicians to use algebraic symbols.Most of what is known about Diophantus’s life comes from an algebraic riddle from around the early sixth century. The riddle states:Diophantus’s youth lasted one sixth of his life. He grew a beard after

Some people believe that January 1, 2000, is the first day of the 21st century. Other people believe that the honour belongs to January 1, 2001. But everyone should agree that January 1, 2002, is the first “sum-day” of the new century- when you write out that date in standard notation, it becomes 01/01/02, and