Thought Stumpers!

Desgined by Andrew Joyce


If you can solve any of these problems please fill out the form below giving the answer and if you are correct you will get your name mentioned on the Thinkers Page along withall the others who can find an answer to the impossible!


The Questions!!



   1. There is one word in the English language that is always pronounced
      incorrectly. What is it?

   2. A man gave one son 10 cents and another son was given 15 cents. What
      time is it?

   3. A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is one foot apart.
      The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12
      inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour.  When the tide
      is at it's highest, how many rungs are under water?

   4. There is a house with four walls. Each wall faces south. There is a
      window in each wall. A bear walks by one of the windows. What color
      is the bear?

   5. Is half of two plus two equal to two or three?

   6. There is a room. The shutters are blowing in. There is broken glass
      on the floor. There is water on the floor. You find Sloppy dead on
      the floor. How did sloppy die?

   7. How much dirt would be in a hole 6 feet deep and 6 feet wide that
      has been dug with a square edged shovel?

   8. If I were in Hawaii and dropped a bowling ball in a bucket of water
      which is 45 degrees F, and dropped another ball of the same weight,
      mass, and size in a bucket at 30 degrees F, dropping them at the same
      time, which ball would hit the bottom of the bucket first? Same
      question, but the location is in Canada?

   9. What is the significance of the following: The year is 1978,
      thirty-four minutes past noon on May 6th.

  10. What can go up a chimney down, but can't go down a chimney up?

  11. If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the
      other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them
      all in the center field?

  12. What is it that goes up and goes down but does not move?

  13. Paul is 20 years old in 1980, but only 15 years old in 1985. How is
      this possible?

  14. What has four legs but only one foot?

  15. How many of each animal did Moses take on the ark?

  16. Kindly old Grandfather Lunn
      Is twice as old as his son
      Twenty-five years ago
      Their age ratio
      Strange enough was three to one
      When does Grandfather celebrate his centenary?

  17. Said a certain young lady named Gwen
      Of her tally of smitten young men
      "one less and three more
      Divided by four
      Together give one more than ten"
      How many boyfriends had she?

  18. There was a young fellow named Clive
      Whose bees number ten power five
      The daughters to each son
      Were as nineteen to one,
      A truly remarkable hive.
      How many sons (drones) were in the hive?

  19. A team's opening batter named Nero
      Squared his number of hits, the big hero!
      After subtracting his score
      He took off ten and two more
      And the final result was a "zero".
      How many hits did Nero make:

  20. Some freshman from Trinity Hall
      Played hockey with a wonderful ball;
      Two times its weight
      Plus weight squared, minus eight,
      Gave "nothing" in ounces at all.
      What was the weight of the ball?

  21. A farmer needs a chain fifteen links long and finds that he has
      available five pieces of chain of three links each. The blacksmith
      tells him that it will cost him twenty cents to cut a link and thirty
      cents to weld a previously cut link. Assuming that the blacksmith does
      the job in the cheapest way, what will it cost the farmer to have
      the five pieces joined into one continuous chain of fifteen links?

  22. A sailboat at sea strikes a reef and puts a 9x16 inch hole in the
      hull. All you have is one board one foot square. How can you cut
      it into two pieces so they will exactly fit the hole?

  23. The Bar Z ranch was a dude ranch. One day a new "dude" asked one of
      the stable hands how many men were tending the horses in the corral.
      Having a mischievous sense of humor, he replied, "I saw eighty-two
      feet and twenty-six heads". He then walked away, leaving the dude
      scratching his head trying to figure it out. How many men were tending
      the horses?

  24. One morning as Paul was getting his newspaper, he noticed on his new
      house something that needed to be fixed. Heading over to the hardware
      store, he spoke to the manager, describing his problem. The manager
      said, "I know just what you need". He led Paul down some aisles
      and stopped in front of some bins. Digging down into some of the bins,
      he set something up on the shelf. "I saw your house when it was built"
      ,the manager said. "Here's all that you'll need and how much it'll
      cost... five will be 15 cents while fifty will be 30 cents, 250 will
      be 45 cents, while 2507 will only cost you 60 cents. One lady, about 
      20 blocks from your house, bought 30247 and only paid 75 cents! These
      are black, but they also come in gold and silver." What was the
      manager selling?

  25. If it takes 3 people to dig a hole, how many does it take to dig
      half a hole?

  26. What is the beginning of eternity. The end of time and space. The
      beginning of every end. And the end of every place?


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