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

Can you find the next number in the below sequence
3 , 7 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 17 ?

Asked by Neha on 04 Mar 2025


Two natural numbers have a sum of less than 100 and are greater than one.

John knows the product of the numbers and Jacob knows the sum of numbers.

The following conversation takes place between them:
John: 'I am not aware of those numbers.'
Jacob: 'I knew you wouldn't be. I am not aware myself.'
John: 'Now I know them!'
Jacob: 'Now I know them, too!'

What are the two numbers?

Asked by Neha on 07 Feb 2026

In a town, there are four houses located at different distances from each other. Following are the distances:

The third house is 60 meters apart from the first house.
The fourth house is 40 meters apart from the second house.
The third house is 10 meters nearer to the fourth house than it is to the second house.

Can you find out the distance between the fourth and the first house?

Asked by Neha on 14 Sep 2024


You are in a room with no metal objects except for two iron rods. Only one of them is a magnet.
How can you identify which one is a magnet?

Asked by Neha on 28 Feb 2024

There is so small cabin inside a deep forest.
All the forest burned out to worst possible but the inside of the cabin is still the same.
However all the person inside the cabin die.

How come ?

Asked by Neha on 15 Sep 2024

Four people need to cross a rickety bridge at night. Unfortunately, they have only one torch and the bridge is too dangerous to cross without one. The bridge is only strong enough to support two people at a time. Not all people take the same time to cross the bridge. Times for each person: 1 min, 2 mins, 7 mins and 10 mins. What is the shortest time needed for all four of them to cross the bridge?

River Crossing with one Torch

Asked by Neha on 31 Jul 2024


Nodes are shown below and you need to connect them based on the following rule: Every node can be connected to the number of nodes inside them, i.e. the first node there is a value of 1 which indicates that the first node can connect to exactly one node only.Can you do it?

Nodes Connectivity Riddle

Asked by Neha on 20 Dec 2020

Can you count the number of matches in the picture below ?


Count the Matches

Asked by Neha on 14 May 2021

A newspaper is supposed to have 60 pages.Pages 14 and 21 are missing from the newspaper.

Can you tell me , Which other pages won't be there as well ?

Asked by Neha on 07 Feb 2023


Find a 9-digit number, which you will gradually round off starting with units, then tenth, hundred etc., until you get to the last numeral, which you do not round off. The rounding alternates (up, down, up ...). After rounding off 8 times, the final number is 500000000. The original number is commensurable by 6 and 7, all the numbers from 1 to 9 are used, and after rounding four times the sum of the not rounded numerals equals 24.

Asked by Neha on 01 Sep 2021

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Jigsaw puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles soared in popularity during the great depression, as they provided a cheap, long-lasting, recyclable form of entertainment.