Shopkeeper's Weights

If a shopkeeper can only place the weights on one side of the common balance. For example, if he has weights 1 and 3 then he can measure 1, 3 and 4 only. Now the question is how many minimum weights and names of the weights you will need to measure all weights from 1 to 1000? This is a fairly simple problem and very easy to prove also.




Similar Riddles

On 26-01-2022, Juli was murdered at her house in a city in India in the afternoon. There were three suspects in the murder and the following are the statements that were given by them:

John: I visited my village that day.
Jacob: I was out to deposit my house tax in the municipality office at that time.
Jonny: I was at a friend's place having lunch at that time.

Can you find out who is the murderer?

Asked by Neha on 15 Dec 2023


A man plots the murder of his wife. His plan is full proof. Nobody saw them leaving their house. He stabbed her with a knife while driving. She died on the spot. He threw her body in a valley. He threw the knife carefully wiping his finger prints on a random garbage bin. Then he went back to his home and no one was watching him this time as well.

After an hour, he was called by the local police department who informed him that his wife was murdered. They asked him to reach the scene of crime immediately. But as soon as he arrived at the crime scene, he was arrested by them.

How did the police know that he himself is the murderer?

Asked by Neha on 01 Aug 2021

Can you make the below equation true by using any three numbers from "1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15"?

( ) + ( ) + ( ) = 30

Asked by Neha on 18 Dec 2025


I know a country, If you remove the last alphabet of its name, it will become a part of your body. Do you name it?

Asked by Neha on 26 Jan 2021

A Japanese ship is sailing in the Indian Ocean. The captain of the ship feels tired and decides to take shower to be rejuvenated. He goes to take the shower after keeping his diamond-studded Rolex watch and gold chain on the table.
When he comes back after 15 minutes, he finds them missing. There are 4 crew members on the ship and he calls them one by one to ask them what they were doing in that duration.

Following are the answers:
1. Crew 'A' who is the cook replies that he was cooking mutton for the crew members.
2. Crew 'B' who is a housekeeper tells that he was sleeping in his room.
3. Crew 'C' who is the engineer says that he was checking on the generator.
4. Crew 'D' who is another housekeeper says that he was correcting the hoisted flag that was put upside down.

It took only a couple of seconds for the captain to find the thief. Can you find the thief too?

Asked by Neha on 03 Jan 2024

Aaron, Brad, Christopher, Danny and Elvis decided to play a game of tiddlywinks. In this game they decided that one win will get 1 point for winning, 0 for losing and 1/2 in case of a tie.

They finished the game in alphabetical order and it was found that the scores were different for each person.

Based on the following two statements, can you find out the result of the individual games?
Brad: No one could finish like me, without a loss.
Elvis: No one played worse than me, I finished without a single win.

Asked by Neha on 16 Jan 2026


Alex is stranded on an island covered in forest.
One day, when the wind is blowing from the west, lightning strikes the west end of the island and sets fire to the forest. The fire is very violent, burning everything in its path, and without intervention the fire will burn the whole island, killing the man in the process.

There are cliffs around the island, so he cannot jump off.

How can the Alex survive the fire? (There are no buckets or any other means to put out the fire)

Asked by Neha on 12 Sep 2021

Can you solve this tricky maths equation problem by replacing it? mark with the correct symbol?

19834 -----: 187
15921 -----: 153
17561 -----: 139
13734 -----: ???

Asked by Neha on 28 May 2023

My friends called me Iron59 because my parents are a chemist and a mathematician. What is my real name?

Asked by Neha on 01 Sep 2023


What can you serve, but never eat?

Asked by Neha on 16 May 2026

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Out of the Box

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