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?




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There are three identical triplets sisters. Demi is the oldest of them all and she always speaks the truth. Diana is the next one who is a liar always. Drew, the youngest of them all speaks both truth and lies randomly.

On a rainy day, a family friend Victor visited them. Since there were starkly identical, he was not able to recognize them. Thus to clarify, he asked one question to each one of them.

He started with the one standing on the left and asked, 'Which sister is in the middle of you three?' She answered, 'That's Demi.'

Then, he asked the one standing in the middle, 'What is your name?' She answered, 'I am Drew.'

Finally, he asked the one standing on the right, 'Who is standing in the middle?' She answered, 'She is Diana.'

Victor was left baffled. He asked the questions three times and received different answers every time.

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The phrase “thinking outside the box” was popularised from the solution to a topographical puzzle involving 9 dots in a box shape.