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?

500 women soldiers are arranged in an array of ten rows and fifty columns in accordance with their respective heights. Now, the tallest woman from each row is asked to move out in the front. From them, the shortest one is labelled as Alpha. They are then asked to resume their original position.

Now, the shortest woman in each column is asked to come out in front. The tallest among them is labelled as Beta.

Can you find out if Alpha will be taller or Beta?

In the image given, you can find several triangles. Can you count them all?

I am the largest in my family of fifty.
The youngest of our family lives separately from the rest of the family and so do I.
I am regarded as harsh and tough.
I am so large, you cut me in two equal halves,
each half would still be larger than the second largest member of the family.
Who am I?

A and B have a certain number of chocolates with them. If B gives one chocolate to A, they will have an equal number of chocolates. But if A gives one chocolate to B, then A will be left with half the number of chocolates that B has.

Can you find out the number of chocolates they have right now?

I have a head like a cat and feet like a cat, but I am not a cat. What am I?

They do not possess flesh or feathers or scales or bone
But still, they are blessed with fingers and thumbs of their own.

What can you deduce from the following BrainBat?

CRY
LMKI

I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.

He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.

Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?

The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.

John said, "If yesterday was tomorrow, today would be Friday."

When did John make this statement?