Source: Sterling, Brain Teasers, p. 30

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In summary, lateral thinking puzzles are a great way to challenge your mind and have some fun. They involve thinking outside the box and finding creative solutions to seemingly difficult problems. These puzzles often involve logic, riddles, or paradoxes. Some examples include getting a coin out of a bottle without removing the cork, crossing a one-way street in the wrong direction without breaking the law, and throwing a ball and having it come back to you without hitting anything. These puzzles can range from simple to complex and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. So next time you want to exercise your brain and have some fun, try tackling some lateral thinking
  • #71
I've got one I made up myself that's a bit more lateral than normal maybe. A group of gangsters are playing a high stakes game of Texas Hold 'Em. Each player starts with 26 chips, small blind one chip, big blind two chips. The first hand, Bob calls the big blind, then folds. On the next hand, as the dealer shuffles he starts counting his chips. As the dealer finishes shuffling, Bob finishes counting, says "Whoops, must have dropped one" and ducks down under the table. He springs back up with a gun in his hand and...

get shot by the dealer. What happened?
 
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  • #72
Did Bob see the dealer cheat(by his shuffling technique), but then the dealer noticed that Bob saw him cheat so beat him to the draw?
 
  • #73
How about this:

The loser of the first hand has to duel with the dealer, who is a crack shot from 23 yards and lousy from 24. The game is that the dealer "shuffles" the amount of yards equal to the amount of chips the loser has left, turns and fires, all while the loser counts his chips in a regular rhythm. The rhythm is set so that the dealer shuffles one yard for every one count (a second or whatever). So Bob, knowing he has a decent chance against the dealer from 24 yards, decides to call the big blind and fold leaving him with 24 chips. Now Bob has something else up his sleeve, he decides to play dirty and pretend to drop a chip, however this strategy backfires fatally when the dealer totally misses and shoots Bob as he is getting up.

Any good?

Or alternatively, Bob ducks under the table using an extra one count, but doesn't figure on the delay in the bullet reaching him which was also a one count.
 
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  • #74
2. she was on foot
3.throw the ball directly up
4. they where facing the opposite ways
5. true there is only Two capital T's
7. the dog used a bridge
8. it'z a hole there is no dirt in it
9. infinate ammounts becaus of the -numbers
10. nelly. because there was only four dogs three with names of colours and nelly
11. The "middle" woman was the daughter of the oldest woman and the mother of the youngest
12. All of them: as the water rises, so does the boat, and thus so does the ladder
13. he put large sacks of cotton on the donkey, when cotton gets wet it weights a lot
14. Ask "Which way do I go to get to your town?" and go whichever way he's directed.
15. The East Street barbershop, because the barber from West Street must get his hair cut at the East Street shop, and his hair looks better.
16. 1 cat, 1 dog.

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  • #75
2: She was walking?
6: They are the same distance from the west coast
8: Since it is a hole there should be no dirt left in it.
9: As many times as you want.
10: Nelly
11: One of the mothers is the daughter of the other mother.
15: The barber with the bad haircut. Since the other barber must have given him that bad cut.

This puzzle can be transferred as a Flash quiz to engage more people. A sample like this is more appealling.
 
  • #76
Here's a fun one:

A man walks into a bar and order a glass of water. The bartender takes a gun and shoots. The man dies.

What happened? You can ask yes/no questions all you want :smile:
 
  • #77
micromass said:
Here's a fun one:

A man walks into a bar and order a glass of water. The bartender takes a gun and shoots. The man dies.

What happened? You can ask yes/no questions all you want :smile:

that's pretty easy.

man has hiccups...wants water to stop them. Bartender is a clever guy. :smile:
 
  • #78
Correct! I guess that was a bit to easy :biggrin:
 
  • #79
here's another easy one

A truck-driver was turning left into a one-way street the wrong way. Halfway down, he was seen by a policeman, who made no attempt to stop him.

Why?
 
  • #80
Some possibilities:

- The truck driver was walking.
- The truck driver was the head of the maffia and the police was to scared to stop him.
- The truck driver was family to the officer.
- The police officer lost his speech and was unable to stop him.
 
  • #81
The legend said:
here's another easy one

A truck-driver was turning left into a one-way street the wrong way. Halfway down, he was seen by a policeman, who made no attempt to stop him.

Why?

Maybe he turned without signaling (i.e. the "wrong way"). The police officer halfay down the street wouldn't have seen it?
 
  • #82
micromass said:
Some possibilities:

- The truck driver was walking.
Correct! this is the actual answer.

- The truck driver was the head of the maffia and the police was to scared to stop him.
I gave this answer when i was first asked (except mafia was gang-leader in my sentence)...and it yet remains my favorite one :biggrin:
 
  • #83
The legend said:
Correct! this is the actual answer.

:

It's not the wrong way if you're a pedestrian, only if you're a driver
 
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  • #84
regor60 said:
It's not the wrong way if you're a pedestrian, only if you're a driver

Yes, that's why it was an excellent lateral thinking puzzle!
 
  • #85
Question 1.
How bout just smashing the bottle
 
  • #86
crawler666 said:
Question 1.
How bout just smashing the bottle

Yes, except that it specifically says not to break the bottle :frown:
 
  • #87
"Dennis hated doing the laundry, so his mother told him that if he was out after 1am, then for each 15 minutes he was late he'd have to do one extra load of laundry. However one day he arrived home half an hour after 1am, but he waited outside for 30 more minutes before going in. Why would he do that?"

The answer for this one, please.
 
  • #88
I'm guessing daylight savings time, but I doubt his mother would let him off the hook quite so easily.

DaveE
 
  • #89
BeetsMe said:
"Dennis hated doing the laundry, so his mother told him that if he was out after 1am, then for each 15 minutes he was late he'd have to do one extra load of laundry. However one day he arrived home half an hour after 1am, but he waited outside for 30 more minutes before going in. Why would he do that?"

The answer for this one, please.

With so few constraints... couldn't disobedience simply be the cause?
 
  • #90
If he waits for 30 minutes, the 15 minute sets would occur "after the 2.00 AM hour" and not "after the 1.00 AM hour".
 
  • #91
KCW said:
If he waits for 30 minutes, the 15 minute sets would occur "after the 2.00 AM hour" and not "after the 1.00 AM hour".

Spring forward, fall back.

If this were in the autumn, then he went inside at 12:45.
 

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