The great emperor Akbar once ruled India. He was well known for his intelligence. But along with that, he was known for the Nine Gems in his court. One of the nine gems was Birbal, a quick witted and extremely intelligent man. The stories of his wit were widely popular.

Once a king ruling in a distant land heard of Birbal. To check his wit, he sent an invitation and called him to visit his land. Akbar allowed Birbal to go and he took off on the journey.

Upon reaching that kings kingdom, he was welcomed with flowers. He was then escorted to the palace of the king. Upon entering the palace, Birbal found that there were six people sitting in front of him adorning the same robe. They were also lookalike and it was hard to judge who the real king was.

After a couple of minutes, Birbal approached one of them and bowed in front of him greeting him.

That was the real king. How did Birbal know who was the real king ?

A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.

How can the swan successfully escape?

This is a most unusual paragraph. How quickly can you find out what is so unusual about it? It looks so ordinary, you'd think nothing was wrong with it. Actually, nothing IS wrong with it. But it is not as ordinary as you might think. If you think about it for a bit, you will find out why it is truly so unusual. So what is it? What is so unordinary about this paragraph?

How old is your son? asked a man to his neighbour. My son is five times as old as my daughter and my wife is five times as old as my son. I am twice as old as my wife whereas my grandmother, who is celebrating her eighty-first birthday is as old as all of us put together.

How old is the man's son ?

What country can make you shiver?

Different lights make me strange by changing me into different sizes. What am I?

What is red and smells like blue paint?

John can fit six large chocolate boxes or nine small chocolate boxes into a carton. How many cartons will he require to put sixty-six chocolate boxes into?

While preparing the table for dinner, wife came up with an idea to tease his mathematician husband. She asked her husband to pick nine toothpicks and make ten without breaking any toothpick.

The husband was also smart and did it within seconds. How ?

How can I get the answer 24 by only using the numbers 8,8,3,3?

You can use the main signs add, subtract multiply and divide.