Brain Teasers-- A Little Thursday Fun

Do you like brain teasers?

I do! For me, a hallmark of long, hot days at summer camp would be trying to unravel the correct response to this kind of scenario by only asking yes or no questions (warning: for some reason these usually deal with death!):

Riddle 1: There is a dead man found naked in a field with broken match next to him. What happened?

OR

Riddle 2: There is a dead man in a room with 53 bicycles. What happened?

OR my favorite because it almost stumped me:

Riddle 3: A man walks into a restaurant and orders Albatross soup. He takes one bite, pays his check, goes out side and kills himself. Why?

I introduced the kids to riddles, and they brought home many others from their own camps. They were standard fare on long car trips.

How about:

Riddle 4: My mama likes coffee but she doesn't like tea. What else does she like?

Does she like butter? No.

Does she like margarine? Yes.

Can YOU figure out what she likes and doesn't like?


Or this one:

Riddle 5: Can you figure out what's behind the green glass door?

A ball? Yes.
A dog? No.
A walrus? No.
A cheetah? Yes.

What's the key?

See the end of this post if if you need help with these!

The last weekend of Jack's life was a full one. Margaret had a soccer tournament in Maryland, plus a soccer pool party. We had church. Dinner out with my dad and stepmother. My sister and her kids were in town. Jack had a baseball scrimmage and a birthday pool party with school friends. There were games in the neighborhood. Plus, Jack and I were on a brain teaser kick.

He was always better at the logic ones than I was. In fact, each birthday we would buy him logic puzzle books and games, which he worked on at bedtime. I wasn't good at them, and they reminded me of my dismal performance on my GRE's: Dr. Lee and Dr. Kim can never work together. Dr. Jones can only work with Dr. Lee on Thursdays. What color is Dr. Kim's sailboat? EEK!

The last brain teaser we did together, that busy Labor Day weekend, nearly broke my brain. Turns out is a variation on a pretty common riddle that has been around forever. My nephew Isaac learned it in school and knew Jack would love it. We sat around the kitchen table with a pencil and paper, talking it through. As we got closer, my sister googled to see if we were on the right track, and we were! Jack did the heavy lifting, but I felt the same excited anticipation I did when I was a 5th grader, closing in on the riddle about albatross soup

Jack figured it out, and it was a triumph-- one of the last Mom/Jack partnerships while we were both in the same place. I still feel as if we are partners, just in a different way than before, as we live out the belief that there is more to this world than what we can see. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

I though you might enjoy trying out the riddle from that day. If you get stumped, just google it! :)

The Computer Riddle

You are in a square-shaped room. In the room there are two identical-looking doors (facing each other on
parallel sides of the room). Immediately when you open one of the doors you die, however, the other door
is the escape and leads to the outside world. Also in the room, there are two all-knowing computers on
separate sides facing each other and adjacent to the doors. These computers look exactly the same;
however, one of them always tells the truth and the other one always lies. You are allowed to ask only ONE
question to ONE computer. Immediately when you ask this question,

BOTH of the computers will shut down. How do you get out?

Provide the most logical answer. Assume that the only way out is by exiting through the freedom door.

Good Luck!

Answers to the other riddles: 

Riddle 1: The man and a friend had been riding in a hot air balloon, but the balloon was going to crash because they weighed too much. First, they took off their clothes to jettison weight. Then, they drew matches to see who would have to go overboard. This man got the short match.

Riddle 2: The bicycles were Bicycle playing cards. He had been cheating at cards (thus, 53 cards not 52) and when his opponents found out, they killed him.

Riddle 3: The man was blind. He had been a sailor on a ship that got shipwrecked and he was blinded. The ship's cook also survived and over the many weeks on the island kept serving the man "albatross soup." After they were rescued, the blind man went to a restaurant to see if his suspicions were true. One taste and he knew he'd been eating his dead crew-mates, not albatross.

Riddle 4: You need to figure out that she does not like words with the letter "T" in them (she likes coffee but she doesn't like "T")

Riddle 5: Green, Glass, and Door all have double letters. So each item behind the Green Glass Door has to have double letters as well.