Once upon a time, there was a castle on a square island. The entire island was surrounded by a 14m wide trench. The Romans had wanted to invade the castle and had brought a few wooden planks along with them to facilitate themselves in crossing the moat. The planks were however found to be only 13m long.
The Romans still managed to cross the trench. How did they do it?
John gave half of the apples he had plus one more to Jacob. He gave half of the remaining ones plus one more to James. Now, John was left with just one apple.
Can you find out how many did he have in the beginning?
In the Wild West, you are challenged into a death match by two bounty hunters nicknamed Golden Revolver (GR) and Killer Boots (KB). You accept the challenge. None of you want to waste any of the bullet and so a certain rules are laid down:
1) All of you will shoot in a given order till the last man standing.
2) Each of you shoots only once upon his turn.
3) If any one of you is injured, the other two will finish him off with an iron rod.
4) The worst shooter of all (which is you) shoots first and the best one shoots at the last.
Now, how will you plan things if you know that you hit every third shot of yours, KB hits every second shot and GR hits every shot ?
These types of puzzles are known as charades. What you have to do is to find two words that are referred to in the first stanza and the second stanza and put them together to form the third word in the third stanza.
Just for example, if my first refers to 'off' and my second refers to 'ice', then my whole will be the 'office'.
My first is present - future's past -
A time in which your lot is cast.
My second is my first of space
Defining people's present place.
My whole describes a lack of site -
A place without length, breadth, or height.
In 2007, a puzzle was released and $2 million prizes were offered for the first complete solution. The competition ended at noon on 31 December 2010, with no solution being found. Wiki