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

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


In a competitive exam, each correct answer could win you 10 points and each wrong answer could lose you 5 points. You sat in the exam and answered all the 20 questions, which were given in the exam.
When you checked the result, you scored 125 marks on the test.

Can you calculate how many answers given by you were wrong?

Asked by Neha on 08 Apr 2025

Is the statement valid that it does not matter how much older a sibling is, eventually the younger one will be half as old as the older one?

Asked by Neha on 23 Feb 2023


All of Jacob's shoes are red except two.
All of Jacob's shoes are green except two.
All of Jacob's shoes are yellow except two.

How many shoes does Jacob have?

Asked by Neha on 15 Feb 2025

A guy in his thirties is found dead in a forest. The shocking thing about the body is that he is wearing his swimming trunks snorkel and a facemask.

For your information, the nearest lake is some 10 miles away and the sea is hundreds of miles away.

How did he die then?

Asked by Neha on 15 Oct 2025

There was a kingdom in which the king had no heir to take over his thrown. Even the queen was dead and he himself was on the verge of dying. He thought about it and then summoned all of the teenagers. He gave one seed each to all of them and asked them to grow the plant. He announced that the one with the most beautiful plant will become the king/queen of the empire after the death of the king.

After a month, all of them were called. The king looked at all of the plants but announced the girl with an empty pot as the queen of the empire. Why?

Asked by Neha on 24 Sep 2024


If 5 cats catch 5 mice in 5 minutes, how long will it take one cat to catch a mouse?

Asked by Neha on 22 Mar 2022

Find the number of squares in the below-given picture.

Count The Number Of Squares

Asked by Neha on 04 Jun 2023

He digs out tiny caves and stores gold and silver in them. He also built bridges of silver and made crowns of gold. They are the smallest you could imagine. Sooner or later everybody needs his help, yet many people are afraid to let him help them. Who is he?

Asked by Neha on 23 Dec 2025


There are a number of books on a shelf. If one book is the 4th from the left and 6th from the right, how many books are on the shelf?

Asked by Neha on 28 Sep 2021

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Challenging

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