Make the Line Sorter

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?




Similar Riddles

From a pack of 52 cards, I placed 4 cards on the table.

I will give you 4 clues about the cards:

Clue 1: Card on left cannot be greater than the card on the right.
Clue 2: Difference between the 1st card and 3rd card is 8.
Clue 3: There is no card of an ace.
Clue 4: There are no face cards (queen, king, jacks).
Clue 5: Difference between the 2nd card and 4th card is 7.

Identify four cards?

Asked by Neha on 24 Aug 2021


John bought a new car. He has a habit of eating ice cream from a particular ice cream shop while returning home from office. Whenever, he eats strawberry ice cream, he faces no problem. But whenever, he eats chocolate ice cream, the car starts giving problem. At first, he thinks, it is just a co-incidence but when this awkward incident happens for 3-4 times, he reports this problem to the company.

The mechanic of the company checks but finds no problem at all. The next day, when he stops by to eat chocolate ice cream, the car again starts giving problem.

Can you find the possible reason?

Asked by Neha on 17 Sep 2024

Andrew’s doctor gives him three pills and tells him to take one every half hour. How much time will have passed by the time Andrew’s taken all three pills?

Asked by Neha on 22 Jun 2025


Today is John's birthday.
A year ago, John had five candles and he lit all the candles except the one at the last.
Now he is going to light all the candles.

How old is John Today?

(He is not five today.....)

Asked by Neha on 04 Feb 2025

What number do you get when you multiply all of the numbers on a telephone's number pad?

Asked by Neha on 17 Jul 2024

81 x 9 = 801. What must you do to make the this equation true?

Asked by Neha on 03 Oct 2021


James Bond is caught up in a mysterious scenario where the evil villain has him blindfolded. He somehow breaks through the handcuffs but is unable to get the blindfold off. Upon searching, he comes across a bow and 3 arrows. He can hear the villain speak, and thus tries to take a shot at him. He launches the first arrow, it misses the villain. He then launches the second arrow and it misses by a greater margin.

What is the probability that this third shot our James bond takes will be worse than the second shot?

Asked by Neha on 21 Jun 2023

Find the last number in the series below:

voN luJ yaM raM ---

Asked by Neha on 05 Jun 2023

A pet show was happening in my locality. I went down along with my kids. In that show, I noticed that all except two of the entries were cats. All except two were dogs and all except two were Monkeys.

Can you find out how many of each animals were present in that pet show?

Asked by Neha on 04 Feb 2021


Detective John was investigating a murder in China.
It was a difficult case, and John was completely stumped until he noticed a message sent to him by the killer cunningly hidden in a newspaper advertisement selling Car Licence Plates.
Detective John thought about it for a while, and when he had solved the puzzle, immediately arrested the guilty man.

Q1) How did John know the advert was a clue for him?

Q2) Solve the code and tell me who John arrested.

This is the newspaper advert (Car licence plates for sale) that Detective John saw.

Plates For Sale;

[W 05 NWO]
[H 13 HSR]
[O 05 EBM]
[D 08 UNE]
[U 10 HTY]
[N 04 BRE]
[N 16 TTE]
[I 26 LHC]
[T 10 AEE]
[I 26 CNA]
[X 22 VDA]

Asked by Neha on 07 Jul 2023

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Word ladder puzzle

The word ladder puzzle was invented by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.