Linear Thinking Riddle

There are four people in a house. A fireman, an athlete, an old woman, and a drunk guy. The house catches fire and before the fact is known, it is too late. All they know is that the entire house is in flames and it will collapse exactly after twelve minutes. Now they can move out of the house but for that, they will have to pass the hallway which is entirely blazing with flames. Thus to move, one must carry a fire extinguisher to keep the flames away. Seeking the burnt wooden floor, only two people can run through that hallway at one time. But for others to go, one must return back with the fire extinguisher. The fireman is trained for such tasks and can run through the hallway in a minute. The athlete can make it in a couple of minutes. The old woman can run slowly and will cover the hallway in four minutes. The drunk guy will take five minutes to run through it. If all of them can make it through the hallway in twelve minutes, all of them will be saved. When two move together, they will run at the speed of the slower ones.

How will all four of them manage to run to safety?




Similar Riddles

We have arranged an array of numbers below. What you have to do is use any kind of mathematical symbol you know excluding any symbol that contains a number like cube root. You can use any amount of symbols but you have to come up with a valid equation for all of them.

0 0 0 = 6
1 1 1 = 6
2 + 2 + 2 = 6
3 3 3 = 6
4 4 4 = 6
5 5 5 = 6
6 6 6 = 6
7 7 7 = 6
8 8 8 = 6
9 9 9 = 6

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Using four sevens (7) and a one (1) create the number 100. Except for the five numerals, you can use the usual mathematical operations (+, -, x, :), root and brackets ()

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0 0 0 = 6
1 1 1 = 6
2 2 2 = 6
3 3 3 = 6
4 4 4 = 6
5 5 5 = 6
6 6 6 = 6
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8 8 8 = 6
9 9 9 = 6

You can use any mathematical symbols in the space provided to make all above algebraic expressions true.

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Christina, Allison and Lena are 3 daughters of John a well-known Mathematician, When I asked John the age of their daughters. He replied "The current age of her daughters is prime. Also, the difference between their ages is also prime."

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Crossword

The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.