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

You are stuck on an island where you have nothing. You find four pieces of paper somewhere on the island. What will be your strategy to escape from the island safely?

PS: No other resource is available to you on the island, neither can you build anything.

Asked by Neha on 11 Oct 2025


A man had five children. He had $100 with him to give to his children. He decided to start with the youngest child and then give $2 more than each younger child to his next elder child.

For example, if he gives $x to the youngest child, he will give $(x+2) to the next one, $[(x+2) + 2] to the next one and so on.

Can you find out how much did the youngest one receive?

Asked by Neha on 30 Sep 2024

My friends called me Iron59 because my parents are a chemist and a mathematician. What is my real name?

Asked by Neha on 01 Sep 2023


Can you find out the remainder when 3^300 is divided by 5?

Asked by Neha on 31 Oct 2023

You are confined in a room and given two metal rods. Out of these two rods, one is magnet and the other is the iron rod. They look starkly similar. You don't have any other metal object in the room.

How will you decide which one of those is magnet?

Asked by Neha on 25 Apr 2021

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?

Asked by Neha on 02 Jun 2023


Jim and Sarah are in a long-distance relationship. Jim buys an engagement ring for Sarah and wants to mail it to her. Unfortunately, the only way to ensure the ring will be received is to place a lock on the package. Jim has locks and Sarah has locks, but neither has keys for each other’s locks. How can they make sure the ring isn’t stolen?

Asked by Neha on 17 Jun 2025

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

What kind of tree can you carry in your hand?

Asked by Neha on 14 Aug 2025


If you had a pizza with crust thickness 'a' and radius 'z', what's the volume of the pizza?

Asked by Neha on 30 May 2024

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Challenging

There is a cryptic organization called Cicada 3301 that posts challenging puzzles online, possibly to recruit codebreakers and linguists.