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

John speaks the truth only once a day in a week. Below are a few hints for you:

First: Days are Sunday, Monday and so on.
Second: One day he says, "I lie on Monday and Tuesday".
Third: On the next day, he says, "Today is either Thursday, Saturday or Sunday".
Fourth: On the next day, he says, "I lie on Wednesday and Friday".

Can you identify the day on which he speaks the truth?

Asked by Neha on 09 May 2025


You are a prisoner sentenced to death. The Emperor offers you a chance to live by playing a simple game. He gives you 50 black marbles, 50 white marbles, and 2 empty bowls. He then says, 'Divide these 100 marbles into these 2 bowls. You can divide them any way you like as long as you use all the marbles. Then I will blindfold you and mix the bowls around. You then can choose one bowl and remove ONE marble. If the marble is WHITE you will live, but if the marble is BLACK... you will die.'

How do you divide the marbles up so that you have the greatest probability of choosing a WHITE marble?

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One is to three as three is to five and five is to four and four is the magic number.
What is the pattern?

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If 1+9+8=1, what is 2+8+9?

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Find The Next Number In The Sequence

30 10 15 13 0 16 -15 ?

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What does below chemistry rebus means?

What does this say

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A murder has been committed in a house. You are a detective and have to find out the murderer.

You investigate by asking three questions to each of the six suspects. Out of those six suspects, four are liars. It is not necessary that they speak everything a lie. But in their answers, there must be at least one lie. One of the six is the murderer.

There are eight rooms in the house in which the murder has been committed: Kitchen, Living Room, Bathroom, Garage, Basement, 3 Bedrooms.

At the time of the murder, only the murderer was present in the killing room. Any number of people can be present in any of the other rooms at the same time.

Can you identify the murderer and the four liars? Also, can you find out who was in which room?

The responses of all the suspects are mentioned below.

Joseph:
Peter was in the 2nd bedroom.
So was I.
David was in the bathroom.

Mandy:
I agree with Joseph that David was in the bathroom and Peter was in the 2nd bedroom.
But I think that Joseph was in the living room, OH MY GOD!

Peter:
Mandy was in the kitchen with Christopher.
But I was in the bathroom.

David:
I still say Peter was in the 2nd bedroom and Jennifer was in the bathroom.
Joseph was in the 1st bedroom.

Jennifer:
Peter was in the bathroom with Christopher.
And Mandy was in the kitchen.

Christopher:
David was in the kitchen.
And I was in the 2nd bedroom with Peter.

PS: The corpse was found in the Living Room.

Asked by Neha on 22 May 2023

There are two candles. Both will only burn exactly for an hour. How will you use these two candles to measure forty-five minutes?

Asked by Neha on 07 May 2024

A woman shoots her husband.

Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes.

Finally, she hangs him.

But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together.

How can this be?

Shoot to Kill

Asked by Neha on 20 Mar 2021


Two Twins Jack and Jill were standing back to back and suddenly they started running in opposite direction for 4 kilometres and then turn to left and run for another 3 kilometres.

what is the distance between the Baggio twins when they stop ?

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Amazing Facts

Crossword

The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.