There is a straight highway. Four different villages lie on that highway. The distance between them is different. The third village is 60km away from the first village; the fourth is 40 km away from the second; the third is 10 km near to the fourth that it is to the second.
Can you calculate the distance between the fourth and the first village ?
Birbal was jester, counsellor, and fool to the great Moghul emperor, Akbar.
The villagers loved to talk of Birbal's wisdom and cleverness,
and the emperor loved to try to outsmart him.
One day Akbar (emperor) drew a line across the floor.
"Birbal," he ordered, "you must make this line shorter, but you cannot erase any bit of it."
Everyone present thought the emperor had finally outsmarted Birbal.
It was clearly an impossible task.
Yet within moments the emperor and everyone else present had to agree that Birbal had made the line shorter without erasing any of it.
How could this be?