Make the Line Smaller

Sherlock Holmes was challenged to make a pre-drawn line smaller without erasing it. He did it in fractions of seconds. How?




Similar Riddles

A girl is twice as old as her brother and half as old as her father. In 50 years, her brother will be half as old as his father. How old is the daughter now?

Asked by Neha on 21 Jan 2023


There are two beautiful yet remote islands in the South Pacific. The Islanders born on one island always tell the truth, and the Islanders from the other island always lie.
You are on one of the islands and meet three Islanders. You ask the first which island they are from in the most appropriate Polynesian tongue, and he indicates that the other two Islanders are from the same island. You ask the second Islander the same question, and he also indicates that the other two Islanders are from the same island.
Can you guess what the third Islander will answer to the same question?

Asked by Neha on 03 Jan 2026

There’s a girl who has a large family. She has an equal amount of brothers and sisters, but each brother only has half as many brothers and sisters. What’s the correct amount of brothers and sisters?

Asked by Neha on 05 Jun 2025


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?

Asked by Neha on 17 May 2021

Sweet & very intelligent katty has 8 puppets(Jane Bird Barbie Angel Colleen Nora Lass Missy).
All puppets are of different size. She arrange all puppets to face towards the guest and tell the guess the following clues :

* Jane has three puppets bigger on its left side
* Bird has two puppets smaller on its left side
* Barbie has one puppet bigger on its right side
* Angel has two puppets smaller on its right side
* Colleen has one puppet bigger on its left side
* Nora has one puppet smaller on its left side
* Lass has four puppets bigger on its right side
* Missy has three puppets smaller on its right side

Also some puppets are inside the bigger puppets.

Assuming you are the guest , can you tell the katty how the puppets are arranged ?

Asked by Neha on 25 Apr 2023

A man and his wife were doing missionary work near the city of Nairobi in the country of Kenya in eastern Africa. Their housing had not yet been completed, so the man, the woman, and their six year old daughter were spending a few nights in the jungle in three small pup tents. During their third night there, the woman was awakened by the call of a hyena passing by, so she got out of her tent to see if her young daughter had been frightened by the noise. As she peered into her daughter's tent she was surprised to see the dark figures of lion, a panther, and a cheetah which were curled up next to her daughter. Seeing her daughter was asleep and unharmed, the woman slowly and quietly withdrew from the tent, and simply returned to her own tent and went back to bed. How could this child's mother leave her daughter in such a dangerous situation, and simply ignore what she had just witnessed without intervening in some way? How can such emotional coldness ever be explained; or is there something here we are missing?

Asked by Neha on 04 Apr 2022


A man is lying dead in a field where no one is around. His head is split open and his legs are disfigured. Near to him, there is an unopened package. No living organism can be found anywhere at the crime scene.

How did he die?

Asked by Neha on 04 Apr 2023

what's the probability of getting a king or a queen from a pack of 52 cards?

Asked by Neha on 27 Sep 2024

A 52% bias toss for head using the 51% tail bias coin was done to obtain a fair result.

Can you find how bias is the floor in this case?

Asked by Neha on 15 Feb 2023


What brings you down but never up?

Asked by Neha on 22 Oct 2021

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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.