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

There are three Athletes (John, Tarun and Harish) and their individual Coaches (Jacob, Meenaxi and Priyanka) standing on the shore.
No Coach trusts their Athlete to be near any other Coach unless they are also with them.
There is a boat that can hold a maximum of two persons.
How can the six people get across the river?

Asked by Neha on 05 Feb 2025


In a kingdom, King George did not allow any citizen to visit the world outside. Also, only a person with proper paperwork was allowed to enter or he was sent back. A wooden bridge was what connected the kingdom to the world. The king had appointed a sharpshooter who would check the every five minutes on the bridge to check. After checking, he would go back to his hut and return exactly after five minutes again. The bridge took 9 minutes to cross.

A merchant was able to escape the kingdom without harming the shooter. How?

Asked by Neha on 04 May 2024

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.

Can you tell who was who?

Asked by Neha on 19 May 2023


What is at the end of a rainbow?

Asked by Neha on 17 May 2021

What word does this rebus represent?

meta meta
meta meta

Asked by Neha on 11 May 2021

100 prisoners are stuck in the prison in solitary cells. The warden of the prison got bored one day and offered them a challenge. He will put one prisoner per day, selected at random (a prisoner can be selected more than once), into a special room with a light bulb and a switch which controls the bulb. No other prisoners can see or control the light bulb. The prisoner in the special room can either turn on the bulb, turn off the bulb or do nothing. On any day, the prisoners can stop this process and say "Every prisoner has been in the special room at least once". If that happens to be true, all the prisoners will be set free. If it is false, then all the prisoners will be executed. The prisoners are given some time to discuss and figure out a solution. How do they ensure they all go free?

Asked by Neha on 20 Apr 2022


An American nightclub called 'The Coconut Grove' had a terrible fire in which over 400 people died. A simple design flaw in the building led to a high death toll. Subsequently, regulations were changed to ensure that all public buildings throughout the country eliminated this one detail, which proved deadly. What was it?

Asked by Neha on 05 Oct 2024

A man and a dog were going down the street. The man rode, yet walked. What was the dog’s name?

Asked by Neha on 10 Mar 2022

After a heavy Thanksgiving meal, the night watchman went to work. In the morning, he told his boss he had dreamed that a saboteur planted a bomb in the factory and that he felt it was a warning. The boss promptly fired him. Worker confused, Why boss fire him?

Asked by Neha on 28 Dec 2025


A Shopkeeper sold a few chickens to four different customers on a particular day. It was such that each customer purchased half of the remaining chickens and half the chicken more.

Can you find out how many chicken were sold by the shopkeeper on that day if we tell you that the fourth customer bought a single chicken ?

Asked by Neha on 01 Jul 2024

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Word ladder puzzle

The word ladder puzzle was invented by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.