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

There is a river to cross using a river raft and there are eight people (father, mother, policeman, thief, 2 daughters and 2 sons). No one knows to operate the raft except the adults and also excluding the thief. Only two people can go in the raft at a time. The raft should keep coming back and forth in order to pick and drop the people.
Rules to be followed:
Father: the father cannot stay in the raft or outside the raft without the presence of the mother.
Mother: the mother cannot stay in the raft or outside the rat without the presence of the father.
Thief: the thief is not allowed to stay with any of the family members unless there is a policeman.
Policeman: the policeman can travel with anyone.
2 sons and 2 daughters: they are not allowed to travel in the raft without the presence of an adult. They cannot either travel in the presence of only thieves without the policeman. The sons cannot be with their mothers without their father's supervision. The daughters are not allowed to be there with their fathers without the supervision of their mothers. But the daughters and the sons can be left unsupervised (as long as the other rules are applied).
What is the sequence that the people should follow in order to cross the river through the raft keeping in mind all the rules?
The rules are applicable not only in the raft but also outside the raft.

Asked by Neha on 14 Aug 2023


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They decide to divide the money equally the next morning. Two greedy robbers decided to cheat the others and reach the place at night. They equally divided the coins between them, one coin left. So they called another robber and then they decided to divide equally among the three. Sadly again one coin left. The same thing happened to the 4th 5th and the 6th robber.
However, when the 7th robber reached in the morning, they can divide the coins equally.

How many coins were there in total?

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Who is Who

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Jessica is telling her friends this story and asks them to guess if it’s the truth or a lie: “There was a man sitting in a house at night that had no lights on at all. There was no lamp, no candle, and no other source of light. Yet, he sat in the house and read his book happily.” Her friends say she’s lying, but Jessica corrects them and says she’s telling the truth. Jessica’s story is true—but how?

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Three friends named Mr. Black, Mr. Yellow and Mr. Green enter a pub on a weekend night. They are wearing either a Black, Yellow or Green shirt.

Mr. Yellow says to them, 'Did you notice that we all are wearing different color shirts than our names?'

To this, the man who was wearing the Green shirt said. 'Wow, thats right.'

Can you identify who is wearing which colour shirt ?

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Fate has decided that you will only be pleased to meet me when you need me

Maybe that is why, when I am working, I start working

However annoying I may be to the regulars, the little ones are always inspired

I will always be waiting if you try to reach me

How many of you can guess my name, let me see

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Challenging

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