Lateral Thinking Puzzles

Category:Puzzles - Mycoted

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[[Category:Puzzles]]

An Eskimo? or an Indian head?

The page will then be listed here!

The puzzles on these pages range from the image type puzzle shown here, through to riddles and other puzzles.

Subcategories There is 1 subcategory to this category.

R ●

Riddles

Articles in category "Puzzles" There are 56 articles in this category.

http://www.mycoted.com/Category:Puzzles (1 of 3) [5/24/2006 12:40:58 AM]

Category:Puzzles - Mycoted

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100 Factorial

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Light Switches

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4 men in hats

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A

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A Puzzle by Lewis Carroll Actual Newspaper Headlines Anthony and Cleopatra

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B

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Manhole Covers Matches Puzzle 1 Matches Puzzle 2 Matches Puzzle 3 Matches Puzzle 4 Matches Puzzle 5 Matches Puzzle 6 Matches Puzzle 7 Matches Puzzle 8 Maths Product

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Bottled Money

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Nine Dots ●

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Circles Coin Balance Count the faces Crossing the bridge

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Physics Problems Push that Car

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S

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Death in a Field Drinking Glasses

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Falling Wine Family Problems Friday

Sheep Sheep Pens Straight Lines Summer Months

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The Arm of the Postal Service

http://www.mycoted.com/Category:Puzzles (2 of 3) [5/24/2006 12:40:58 AM]

The Blind Beggar The Broken Match The Coal, Carrot and Scarf The Deadly Dish The Deadly Party The Elder Twin The Man in the Bar The Man who Hanged Himself The Music Stopped The Realisation The Royal Mint The Swimmer in the Forest The bird and the cars The man in the Elevator There are many correct ways to answer a test question Triangle Ratios Trouble with Sons

Wetter as it Dries What is it...

Category:Puzzles - Mycoted

G ●

Gaining Space

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Heaven How many stamps

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Image:Eskimo-indian-s.gif - Mycoted

Image:Eskimo-indian-s.gif From Mycoted ● ● ●

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Eskimo-indian-s.gif (2KB, MIME type: image/gif) Eskimo? or North American Indian Head? (small)

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Image:Eskimo-indian-s.gif - Mycoted

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Category:Puzzles

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User:Andy - Mycoted

User:Andy From Mycoted Andy Beckett Mycoted Ltd my useful links; To edit the navigation window: MediaWiki:Sidebar Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/User:Andy" ● ● ● ● ●

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Login required to edit - Mycoted

Login required to edit From Mycoted You have to login to edit pages. Return to Main Page. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/User_talk:Andy" ● ● ●

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Mycoted:Privacy policy - Mycoted

Mycoted:Privacy policy From Mycoted There is currently no text in this page, you can search for this page title in other pages or edit this page. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Mycoted:Privacy_policy" ● ● ●

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Mycoted:About - Mycoted

Mycoted:About From Mycoted Mycoted is a UK based company that specialises in Creativity and Innovation. As part of our aim to help spread creativity and innovation across the world, we have provided this wiki of techniques for everyone to take part in. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Mycoted:About" ● ● ● ● ●

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Mycoted:General disclaimer - Mycoted

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Category:Riddles - Mycoted

Category:Riddles From Mycoted Riddles...

Articles in category "Riddles" There are 19 articles in this category.

A

T cont. ●

Anthony and Cleopatra

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D

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Death in a Field

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F

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Friday

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Heaven

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Push that Car

The Blind Beggar The Broken Match The Coal, Carrot and Scarf The Deadly Dish The Deadly Party The Elder Twin The Man in the Bar

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P

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The Arm of the Postal Service

http://www.mycoted.com/Category:Riddles (1 of 2) [5/24/2006 12:41:19 AM]

T cont. ●

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The Man who Hanged Himself The Music Stopped The Realisation The Swimmer in the Forest The man in the Elevator Trouble with Sons

Category:Riddles - Mycoted

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Anthony and Cleopatra - Mycoted

Anthony and Cleopatra From Mycoted Anthony and Cleopatra are lying dead on the floor of a villa in Egypt. Nearby is a broken bowl. There is no mark on either of their bodies and they were not poisoned. How did they die? Answer Anthony and Cleopatra were goldfish whose bowl was knocked over by a clumsy dog. This is one of a set of puzzles which deceive by using human names for animals. This is not a very satisfactory basis for a good puzzle but despite that, the puzzle has enduring popularity. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Anthony_and_Cleopatra" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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http://www.mycoted.com/Anthony_and_Cleopatra [5/24/2006 12:41:21 AM]

Death in a Field - Mycoted

Death in a Field From Mycoted A man is lying dead in a field. Next to him there is an unopened package. There is no other creature in the field. How did he die? Answer 1 There was a package dropped from an overflying Chopper. The packet the person in the field and he was knocked dead. Answer 2 The man had jumped from a plane but his parachute had failed to open. It is the unopened package. Answer 3 The man is highly allergic to plant growth in the field and it suffocated him. The package is just something he was carrying and has no implication to the puzzle. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Death_in_a_Field" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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Friday - Mycoted

Friday From Mycoted A man rode into town on Friday. He stayed for three nights and then left on Friday. How come? Answer The man's horse was called Friday. OK, so this is really a schoolboy riddle but people keep asking it! Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Friday" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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http://www.mycoted.com/Friday [5/24/2006 12:41:25 AM]

Heaven - Mycoted

Heaven From Mycoted A man died and went to Heaven. There were thousands of other people there. They were all naked and all looked as they did at the age of 21. He looked around to see if there was anyone he recognised. He saw a couple and he knew immediately that they were Adam and Eve. How did he know? Answer He recognised Adam and Eve as the only people without navels. Because they were not born of women, they had never had umbilical cords and therefore they never had navels. This one seems perfectly logical but it can sometimes spark fierce theological arguments! Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Heaven" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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http://www.mycoted.com/Heaven [5/24/2006 12:41:27 AM]

Push that Car - Mycoted

Push that Car From Mycoted A man pushed his car. He stopped when he reached a hotel at which point he knew he was bankrupt. Why? Answer The man pushing the car was a player in a monopoly game and his game piece was a car. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Push_that_Car" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Arm of the Postal Service - Mycoted

The Arm of the Postal Service From Mycoted One day a man received a parcel in the post. Carefully packed inside was a human arm. He examined it, repacked it and then sent it on to another man. The second man also carefully examined the arm before taking it to the woods and burying it. Why did they do this? Answer The three men had been stranded on a desert island. Desperate for food, they had agreed to amputate their left arms in order to eat them. They swore an oath that each would have his left arm cut off. One of them was a doctor and he cut the arms off his two companions. They were then rescued. But his oath was still binding so he later had to have his arm amputated and sent to his colleagues. This is often told with a further twist whereby a doctor pays a tramp a large sum in order to amputate the tramp's arm which the doctor then sends to another man who inspects it etc. This variation can make for a long night of questioning! Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Arm_of_the_Postal_Service" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Blind Beggar - Mycoted

The Blind Beggar From Mycoted A blind beggar had a brother who died. What relation was the blind beggar to the brother who died? (Brother is not the answer) Answer The blind beggar was the sister of her brother who died. This puzzle is one of a type that depends on the listener making implicit assumptions about gender - in this case that a blind beggar is a man. Similar puzzles involve surgeons who refuse to operate on their sons etc. This is probably the best of the class because it is very simply stated and yet which has the power to baffle those who have not heard it before. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Blind_Beggar" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Broken Match - Mycoted

The Broken Match From Mycoted A man is found dead in a field. He is clutching a broken match. What happened? Answer He and a number of other passengers were making a balloon trip in a desperate attempt to flee a country. The balloon had to lose weight to stop it from crashing. He drew the short match and had to jump. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Broken_Match" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Coal, Carrot and Scarf - Mycoted

The Coal, Carrot and Scarf From Mycoted Five pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn. Nobody put them on the lawn but there is a perfectly logical reason why they should be there. What is it? Answer They were used by children who made a snowman. The snow has now melted. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Coal%2C_Carrot_and_Scarf" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Deadly Dish - Mycoted

The Deadly Dish From Mycoted Two men went into a restaurant. They both ordered the same dish from the menu. After they tasted it, one of the men went outside the restaurant and shot himself. Why? Answer The dish that the two men ordered was albatross. They had been stranded many years earlier on a desert island. When the man tasted albatross he realised that he had never tasted it before. This meant that the meat he had been given on the island was not albatross as he had been told. He correctly deduced that he had eaten the flesh of his son who had died when they first reached the island. This has something in common with No. 9 above but is in my opinion even better. It is fiendishly difficult to figure out from a standing start. A beautiful aspect of this problem is the subtle fact that he shot himself because he did not recognise the taste of the dish! Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Deadly_Dish" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Deadly Party - Mycoted

The Deadly Party From Mycoted A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die? Hint He drank as much punch as those who drank it later and died .... The poison had been in the punch bowl all the time .... Answer The poison in the punch came from the ice cubes. When the man drank the punch the ice was fully frozen. Gradually it melted, poisoning the punch. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Deadly_Party" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Elder Twin - Mycoted

The Elder Twin From Mycoted One day Kerry celebrated her birthday. Two days later her older twin brother, Terry, celebrated his birthday. How come? Answer At the time she went into labour, the mother of the twins was traveling by boat. The older twin, Terry, was born first early on March 1st. The boat then crossed the International Date line (or any time zone line) and Kerry, the younger twin, was born on February the 28th. In a leap year the younger twin celebrates her birthday two days before her older brother. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Elder_Twin" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Man in the Bar - Mycoted

The Man in the Bar From Mycoted A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out. Answer The man had hiccups. The barman recognised this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups - so the man no longer needed the water. This puzzle has claims to be the best of the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction of figuring it out. It is a simple puzzle to state but a difficult one to solve. It is a perfect example of a seemingly irrational and incongruous situation having a simple and complete explanation. Amazingly this classic puzzle seems to work in different cultures and languages. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Man_in_the_Bar" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Man who Hanged Himself - Mycoted

The Man who Hanged Himself From Mycoted Not far from Madrid, there is a large wooden barn. The barn is completely empty except for a dead man hanging from the middle of the central rafter. The rope around his neck is ten feet long and his feet are three feet off the ground. The nearest wall is 20 feet away from the man. It is not possible to climb up the walls or along the rafters. The man hanged himself. How did he do it? Answer He climbed on a block of ice which has since melted. This one is often stated with the clue of a puddle of water, but surely this is too much assistance. It is one of several problems which depend on the change of state of water (snow or ice to water or steam). An alternative solution is that he climbed the rope, then put the end of the rope around his neck and let go. Many thanks to Bob Kew for another intriguing solution: He used a bale of hay to stand on, or jump off, which has been eaten by sheep (which have left). Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Man_who_Hanged_Himself" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Music Stopped - Mycoted

The Music Stopped From Mycoted The music stopped. She died. Explain. Answer She was a circus tight-rope walker who walked blindfolded over a high wire. The band played as she crossed and when the music stopped it was the signal that she had reached the end of the walk and could safely alight. One day the conductor was taken ill and the stand-in conductor ended the piece of music too early. She stepped off to her death. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Music_Stopped" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Realisation - Mycoted

The Realisation From Mycoted A man was walking downstairs in a building when he suddenly realised that his wife had just died. How? Answer The man had visited his wife in hospital. She was on a life-support machine. As he was walking down the stairs all the lights went out. There had been a power cut and the emergency back-up systems had failed. He knew that she had died. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Realisation" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The Swimmer in the Forest - Mycoted

The Swimmer in the Forest From Mycoted Deep in the forest was found the body of a man who was wearing only swimming trunks, snorkel and facemask. The nearest lake was 8 miles away and the sea was 100 miles away. How had he died? This is supposedly based on a true incident. Does this make it an urban legend? Many urban legends can be restated as lateral thinking puzzles. Answer During a forest fire, a fire-fighting plane had scooped up some water from the lake to drop on the fire. The plane had accidentally picked up the unfortunate swimmer. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_Swimmer_in_the_Forest" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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The man in the Elevator - Mycoted

The man in the Elevator From Mycoted

A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to go down to the ground floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns he takes the elevator to the seventh floor and walks up the stairs to reach his apartment on the tenth floor. He hates walking so why does he do it? Answer The man is too short to reach the number 10 button. An alternative solution: The elevator only runs to the 7th floor. The riddle did not state that he takes the elevator from the 10th floor in the morning, just that he takes the elevator to the ground floor. He walks to the 7th floor each morning to take the elevator to the ground floor also. Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/The_man_in_the_Elevator" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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Trouble with Sons - Mycoted

Trouble with Sons From Mycoted A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so? Answer They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets etc.) This simple little puzzle stumps many people. They try outlandish solutions involving test-tube babies or surrogate mothers. Why does the brain search for complex solutions when there is a much simpler one available? Retrieved from "http://www.mycoted.com/Trouble_with_Sons" Categories: Puzzles | Riddles ● ● ● ● ●

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Categories - Mycoted

Categories From Mycoted The following categories exist in the wiki.

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Books (18 links) Categories (3 links) Creativity Techniques (187 links) Idea Generation (1 links) Idea Selection (5 links) People (9 links) Problem Definition (11 links) Processes (1 links) Puzzle Images (1 links) Puzzles (57 links) Riddles (19 links)

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100 Factorial - Mycoted

100 Factorial From Mycoted One for the mathematicians this week, with thanks to Paul Kellet for sending it in. How many zeros are there at the end of 100! (factorial)? Answer 24 The trick here is not to calculate 100! on your calculator (which only gives you ten digits of accuracy), but to figure out how high a power of 10 goes into 100! evenly. For every trailing zero, there is a power of 10 that divides 100! evenly. In order to do that, since 10 = 2*5, we need to figure the highest powers of 2 and 5 dividing 100! and take the lesser of the two exponents. (Why?) Consider what happens when we multiply together 1*2*3*4*5*6*..., starting with the lowest numbers first. Every fifth number, starting with 5, is divisible by 5. That gives you 100/5 = 20 factors of 5 in 100!. But there are more. Every 25th number, starting with 25, has an extra factor of 5 beyond the ones already counted. That gives you 100/25 = 4 more factors of 5 in 100!. To get a third factor of 5 from a single number, it has to be a multiple of 125, and no number