Without lifting pen from paper join these dots with four straight lines:

Alternative:  
Put any 3 balls on each side of the scale. This will tell you which group of 3 has the heavy ball. For the second weighing, put 1 of the heavy group on each side of the scale. If the scale is balanced, the heavy ball is the one you didn't weigh. This way you don't need to keep track of which ball is which.
Sent in by Garrett Roberts

Alternative: Geese can swim so takes fox over first goose tethered and swimming behind each journey, returns picks up grain. (2 Journeys)

Alternative: Fox and grain in boat, both farmer and goose swim, farmer pushing boat. :-) (1 Journey!!)

Moving only two adjoining coins at a time can you in three moves, change it to this:

Sent in by Robert Ehrlich
#9 could also be: The first man saw that, the boss had no preferance, than he would know that putting a white disk on his head and black disks on the other mens heads would be unfair and would mean that all men were not solving the same puzzle. (So two men were seeing two other men: one wearing black and the other wearing white while one man saw two men- both wearing black) By forcing one man to solve one puzzle and two other men solving a copletely different puzzle, the boss would have been unfair, and he knew that the boss would not and could not do that because he had no preferance. So because he knew that the boss would not be unfair and put a different color on one mans head than the others he could know that they all had the same color, and seeing that the other two men were wearing black, knew that he too was wearing black. (He could even solve this puzzle without observing the two other mens disks because he knew that they were all wearing the same color which meant that they were all wearing black because there were only two white and three men.)

Sent in by Robert Ehrlich
#12 is incorrect because: The question does not state that the sign had anything about burmingham(which as i can guess is Burmingham, Alabama) he would observe where the hole for the sign was and then reason that, since he was in the United States, know which way the sign faced because it is placed on the right side of the road, and if an intersection had four roads, the hole would be in one of the four corners, which means it could only belong to one of the two roads that met at that corner, assuming that they were two way roads. He knew that since he was in the U.S. and people drove on the right side of the road, the sign belonged to the road in which the right side was touching at the corner. Then he would place it were it went and know where he was going.

Sent in by Bradley Howard
I'm afraid that the answer for # 13 is incorrect!!!  The question states that the motorist can ask only one question.  But it does not state the number of times it can be asked.  Therefore the question that the motorist must ask the brother is "Which is the right road?"  The first time meaning left vs. right, the second time wrong vs. right.  The riddle does not state that the questions cannot be specified, the motorist can tell the brother where he is trying to get to, etc. The brother who always lies would say that the "right" (vs. left) road would be the left road!! Again: "Which is the right road?"

Sent in by William Volterman
the answers stated are both incorrect... the person should ask the following. "if i were to ask the other person, which way would he tell me to go?". If he asked the the truth teller, then the truth teller would say the truth, in that the liar person would lie and say the wrong way, so he would say the wrong way as well. So you would choose the opposite. If you asked the liar, since the truth teller would say the right way he must lie so the liar will say the opposite of that as well which of course is the wrong way. In either case they will both point to the wrong way. (Though for different reasons)

Alternative by Trista Star
Even if a kid does have a parent, I hate to say this but sometimes they still give their kids to an orphanage. (because of money problems, they can't take care of you)

[ED: So is it technically still an orphanage?]

Compiled from various sources
Immaculate Conception, Roman Catholic belief that from the first instant of its creation, the soul of the Virgin Mary was free from original sin; Not to be confused with that of the Virgin Birth, which holds that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin mother. 
Original sin is the idea that the sinful choice Adam made in the Garden of Eden is inherited at conception by everybody born and can only be removed by the sacraments of the church. From this arose the concept of Mary's immaculate conception. By God's choice Mary did not inherit the original sin in order that she be a suitable mother for Jesus.
 

All right, you got it but try it on one person - not a group, otherwise someone will cotton on - it’s astounding that you can repeat it over and over again and your victim still won’t get it.

Sent in by Darren Neely
I disagree with the answer to number 18. The answer is actually 56 (8x8 - 8) regardless of the fact that acorns don't grow on elm trees. The question states that there are acorns on the elms branches, so there are! If the question was how many acorns were still growing on the branches then it would work! Great pages by the way!

Sent in by Robert Ehrlich
#18 both answers are incorrect because:
i agree that the question clearly stated that acorns were infact growing on an elm tree, so you cant say they weren't.
however, the answer 56 is also wrong because, although the acorns were blown off the tree, that doesn't mean they are not IN EXISTANCE, which is my interpretation of there, so the correct answer would be 64 (8x8)

Sent in by Renai McLean.
"This is the solution I came up with, and I think it works as well:  The host brother got married to a woman who had siblings.  At least one of the siblings had children, one of whom is the youth at the party"

Sent in by Robert Gowland
The middle aged brother is the young man's uncle, so the middle aged sister must be his mother

Sent in by Robert Burbidge
The brother is a monk, and the sister is a nun (or a matron)

Sent in by Hannah Belitz
The elevator may only go up to floor ten, but has stairs going up to floor 21. (Some apartments are like this, because when they were first built they only had a certain # of stories, and were then added onto later, but only the stairs were expanded because an elevator is more expensive.)

Sent in by Chelcie Guerra
I don't agree that he is not tall enough to reach the 21st button. I think that because of the way it is worded he no longer lives on the 21 floor and he now lives on the 10th floor. The operative words being, A boy who LIVED on the twenty-first story USED to go down the lift each morning. Now he only takes the lift to the 10th floor because that is where he now lives.

Sent in by Robert Ehrlich
#21 the first answer is correct but the second answer is incorrect because: You say that the boy rode down the elevator from the twenty-first floor and back up to the tenth, because the eleveator only went up to 10. But the question clearly states that the boy rode the elevator down from the twenty-first floor, so that proves that the 11-21st floors could be reached by the elevator. the third answer is also incorrect because the question is always in the past tense. He USED to go down from the 21st floor to school and when he came home, he WOULD go to the tenth floor. It never says the word NOW as that person "implied". Their answer is also wrong because the way the question was worded, he did the same routine every day. So it would be absourd to say that he moved twice a day. He would have to move twice a day because eventually he would have to go back upstairs to the 21st floor to start the whole routine over again.

BUT The longest UK race in the flat season is the four-and-a-half mile long Grand National in April.

Move one short line to make this correct:

5 + 5 + 1 = 546

Answer by Katy Sheen
You could take off the vertical line from one of the plus signs and cross it over the equals sign. I.e. the 'does-not-equal sign'. Therefore 5 - 5 + 1 does not equal 546

Answer suggested by Paula Roy
Hi, I love these puzzles - figured some out, got stumped by others.  I wanted to suggest an alternative answer to puzzle number 23. My solution is to restructure the first plus sign to turn it into the number four (by taking the right hand 'arm' of the plus sign and placing it on the diagonal on the left  - see the number four in 546).  This would give you 545 + 1 = 546.

Answer suggested by Matthew Dakin
My solution is to take the upper-left diagonal line of the '4' in 546 to make a 'plus' sign. That would make 5+5+1=5+6. You would just disgurd the line from the 4. The question states you don't have to use this.

Answer posted by Melanie Watt
The woman may have given birth to three children in July, one needing to go into intenisve care for neonatal care after birth defects, dieing in August, leaving the mother with twins. Graphic I know, but happens frequently

192
021
222
324
252
627
2….?

Every second line is in sequence, 
192, 222, 252, 282 (+30) 
and then 021, 324, 627 (+303) 

Alternative answer by Robert Gowland
The sequence of numbers is 282, 930, 313, 233, 343...  Take the numbers 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 which are in groups of 2 digits and move them into groups of 3 digits. 

19 2 <-- twenty is split 
0 21 
22 2 <-- twenty-three is split 
3 24 
25 2 <-- twenty-six is split 
6 27

Alternative by Adam Brooke
the next few could possibly be
192
021
222
324
252
627
2...82
920
212
223
242
526
272

if you look at the pattern of the numbers you see that we start with 192 then 021 then 222. looking in a diagonal direction going down and left we see a pattern emerging. 1, 90, 222, 123, 222, 456, 222, 789, 222, 012, 222, 345, 222. the sequence continues the pattern every second time.

 Inaugurated in 1890, the first official Championship was contested between just 8 counties: Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire, the first championship going to Surrey. Somerset was admitted the following season, followed by Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire in 1895. Worcestershire was admitted in 1899, Northamptonshire in 1905 and Glamorgan - the current champions - in 1921. Durham, the newcomers, were admitted in 1992.

Radical changes are planned for the new millenium. In a move to introduce a greater element of competition into the game, the 18 first-class counties will be split into two divisions of nine teams each, based on this season's performance in the championship.
(Source Essex County Cricket Club http://www.essexcricket.org.uk/) 

Answer posted by Melanie Watt
Lateral thinking - 'How many counties are there in the County Championship?' Only one 'county'

Sent in by Jörg Ernst, UniSA Chaplain
Actually it's not as silly as it sounds (well maybe it is) but in the world of mathematics and physics (to which the real world is only a close approximation) this puzzle is actually possible and I remember answering similar questions in my first year of phyiscs at university. If the question is actually taken literally the squirrel would be looking at himself after its 30th trip at which point it will be travelling at 408021893.12m/s (if I've done my maths correctly). It is during the squirrel's 30th trip that it has reached the speed of light and time would quite literally have stood still. By the time it reached the end of the pipe the sqirrel would have succeeded in travelling back in time and be looking at him or her self in the past. Or to think of it another way, the squirrel would have literally overtaken the light rays which are travelling through the pipe and if it stuck its head in the pipe after its 30th run the image hitting its eyes would be of itself sticking its head into the other end of the pipe. In theory it would then also be possible to take a photo of the event where the squirrel is sitting at both ends of the pipe at the same time. Of course it is quite debatable whether such time travel really is possible or whether the squirrel would have survived breaking the sound barrier or whether the squirrel could even find the end of the pipe while travelling at those speeds because any image that actually enters its eyes would be highly distorted (kind of like watching the starship enterprise engaging its warp drive) or whether the squirrel would not have escaped the earth's gravitational pull.

Sent in by D Judson, University of Brighton
Question 32; The answer given to this question states that "in the world of mathematics and physics (to which the real world is only a close approximation) this puzzle is actually possible." I would like to point out that in the "world of physics" it is not possible for a body with finite mass to travel at the speed of light without having an infinite amount of energy. To travel at speeds greater than the speed of light would require an even greater amount of energy, which is just not possible. Therefore, the squirrel can not be going faster than the speed of light and so cannot be at both ends of the drain pipe at the same time.

Sent in by Stuart Herring, London
The question clearly states that the condition to be satisfied is that the squirrels head is poking into both ends of the pipe at the same time. This condition can not be satisfied even if it were possible to be travelling faster than the speed of light, because travelling faster that the speed of light does not stop or reverse time. In the case that the squirrel can travel faster than the speed of light, his head only appears to be poking into the other end of the drain pipe, but it isn't really there. Its the same as when we are looking at stars in the sky. The stars we see may not actually be there. The light which shows their destruction may not have reached us yet, but this doesn't affect whether or not at this instant the star exists.

 DONALD

+GERALD

=ROBERT

If D = 5 What are the rest?

 526485
+197485
=723970

<<Method / Answer>>

Answer sent in by Melanie Watt
These are just lines with triangles on the end, not meeting others of their sort, therefore this diagram is neither a spiral nor concentric circles. 
(Ed: true, but follow the line they make...)

You are in the army. You are standing at a gorge which is crossed by a rope bridge. It is pitch black and you only have one torch. You know the bridge is going to blow up in 17 mins and you have to get your 3 men and yourself across the bridge in 17 mins before the bridge blows.

You take 1min to cross the bridge.
X takes 2 mins to cross
Y is overweight and takes 5 mins to cross
Z is injured and takes 10 mins to cross.

The rope bridge can only support the weight of two men at any one time. One of you must always return with the torch as it is impossible to cross the bridge if you can't see. Whoever crosses always takes the time of the slowest persons as you have to help them.

How do you save all you team and do it??

Answer submitted by Mike Bosch
You and X go first (1 and 2 minute) - 2 minutes elapsed

You run back - add 1 minute = 3 elapsed

Y and Z go over - 10 minutes = 13 elapsed

X goes back to pick up you - 2 minutes = 15 elapsed

You and X go over again - 2 minutes = 17 elapsed.

"The answer to Mindbender 39 seems a bit contrived, albeit interesting. I would submit that another 'solution' that is no more contrived is: Place the nine dots on a deflated spherical balloon with the center line of dots in line with the opening of the balloon. When the balloon is inflated, each of three rows of three dots will be on a great circle. It is then easy to select three segments of the great circles to solve the problem."

You want to send a valuable object to a friend. You have a box which is more than large enough to contain the object. You have several locks with keys. The box has a locking ring which is more than large enough to have a lock attached. But your friend does not have the key to any lock that you have. 
Note that you cannot send a key in an unlocked box, since it might be copied. How do you do it?

This is the basis to most computer encryption techniques on the web. When you encrypt something, you are doing so with that person's lock, they keep the key.

Sent in by Jo Vincent
The person could send the other person the box with a lock on and the friend puts another lock on the box. The friend then sends the box back to the first person who then removes their own lock and sends it back to their friend who can then take off their own lock and therefore open the box.

Sent in by Melanie Watt
If the box is more than large enough to contain the item, tie it to a short piece of cord which hangs over the side of the box, so the friend can open the lock with it. Unless one of the postmen is desperate to invade someone's privacy and open their mail, and even copy their key, he would definitely get sacked for cutting the cord, as he couldn't copy it with it on. 

Sent in by Mango
Some combination locks are produced with emergency keyholes, just in case you forget or something. This justifies the "key". Send the box with such a combination lock and call your friend to tell him the combo.

5 + 5 + 1 = 546

5 + 5 + 1 = 5 + 6

Sent in by Melanie Watt
You could just remove one of the equals lines so that it is an unsolved equation

Submitted by Linda Ostlie:
"assuming that the water is already boiling start by turning over both timers when the 7min timer runs out drop the egg in the water there will be 4 min left on the 11 min timer when the 11min timer runs out flip it for the remaining 11 min (11min+4min=15min) add the 7 min from the original timer you get 22min (or since you used the 11min timer twice)"

a) Mad Professor Zweistein has managed to build a car that has an unlimited to speed and incredible breaks that allow it to stop instantly. He only has one problem, the car is seven metres long and his garage can only accomodate a six metre car. How fast does Professor Zweistein need to drive the car so that it will fit into the garage and when does he need to apply the breaks?

b) During his attempt to get his car into the garage, Professor Zweistein is caught by a red light camera for driving through an intersection while the light was red. In court Zweistein defended himself by saying that at the speed he was travelling the red light from the traffic light actually looked green (due to the doppler effect). Being a physics buff himself, the judge decided to take Professor Zweistein at his word. If the standard rate is $1 per km above the speed limit of 60 km/h, how much was the speeding fine issued by the judge to Professor Zweistein?

6 = sqrt[1-(v*v)/(c*c)]*7 which when rearranged gives sqrt{[1-(36/49)]*c*c} = v = 154523626 m/s. Now

1 m/s = 2.2369 miles per hour so the car would have to be doing 345653900 miles per hour to give a length to contraction of 1m, as viewed from the stationary garage.

b) The second part of the question asks when the brakes need to be applied. Once the brakes are applied, the vehicle is no longer travelling 345653900 miles per hour, relative to the stationary garage, its apparant length will return to the original 7m and so it will no longer fit in the garage. Therefore he should apply the brakes before he hits the back wall of the garage, but he will still not be able to fit the car inside!

Submitted by Dawn (m y s t i c a l   .  d a w n)
b) none- the judge took him at his word and didn't fine him.

Sent in by Michael Hutchins
On question 44 about the mad Professor Zweistein, there are two parts. The first part involves two questions and a slightly complicated answer. However, assuming the first part was answered correctly, one can then answer the second part. Part B states that the Professor is caught on video tape running a red light. He is then taken to court for this offense. However, upon his hearing he defends himself by stating that at that speed the red light actually looked green. Well since the Judge is himself a physics buff, he realizes that the Professor is right. However, he then decides to give the professor a speeding ticket. The last sentence of part B is "If the standard rate is $1 per km above the speed limit of 60 km/h, how much was the speeding fine issued by the judge to Professor Zweistein?" If you will notice, the professor was brought in for running a red light but was issued a fine for speeding. Since we have the answer as to how fast he was traveling from part A, we can then determine how much his fine was. The answer in part A states that the Professor was traveling at 154523626 m/s. Using a simple conversion of 1m/s = 3.6km/h we can deduce that the professor was traveling at 556285053.6Km/h. However, since the fine is $1 above 60km/h then you merely have to subtract 60km/h leaving you with a fine of $556284993.6.

(Sent in by Hannah Belitz)
A butcher is 5' 10".  What does he weigh?

2 (Both sons sitting at the table are themselves fathers)

Sent in by William Volterman
actually 2... every man is someones son... therefore if there are 3 men there were actually 3 sons.

Sent in by Kaitlyn
It could also be four- A father and his son, and a different father and his son [the two fathers not being related].

YYURYYUBICURYY4ME

92 triangles
David Yeck
SWAP YFC/ Campus Life

Actually, the answer to #50 is 97 triangles!!!
Nolan Booth

"On the answer page it says there are 97 triangles how is this 97 is an odd number but the shape is of 4 equal quarters."
Littlesimo123

Sent in Trevor Pugh
"Alternate answer to # 53
An airplane crashed into the hillside. The two men were the pilots in the cabin of the airplane."

4 = G in A C C (C D)

25 = S of F

18 - Y R (C T - B D)

3 = L in a H

1 = F H H

7 = S R of F N

18 = W A B

1 = S in the K of G M

4 = G in A C C (C D)  # 4 Ghosts in a Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
25 = S of F # 25 = square of five
18 - Y R (C T - B D) # yellow roses?
3 = L in a H # 5 lines in a haiku
1 = F H H # 1 = fair high humidity
7 = S R of F N # 7 = square root of 49
18 = W A B # 18 = with a bullet
1 = S in the K of G M #  1 sonata in the key of G Major

I got this from a website:
http://www.millenniumschools.co.uk/pub/essex/ourladyofransom/ai.html?1084197580

Thanks to Melanie Watt for pointing out the original typo (not mine) and that there are only 3 lines in a Haiku therefore '5 = L in a H' was wrong.

Sent in Melanie Watt
As it is a freezer room, their is frost on the floor, and, after eating some of the frozen, uncooked meat, the man died of food poisening and fell onto the floor, melting some of the frost with his body heat.

"The answer is that the tape player stopped after the thud, hence someone must have switched it off, and a dead man could not do this."

[Ed: but the statement does not say the tape had stopped after the 'thud' this is only a presumption... what would be the answer if the tape had been voice activated with auto stop or had just kept on running?]

"I have reviewed my answer, and would now say that there is another answer. When he started the tape player, he heard his friend immediately, which means the tape player must have been rewound to the beginning, which must have been done by the murderer."

... or it could just be that being his friend you recognise it as not being his voice.

btw: Why is Alfred taking to a tape recorder. Why was he not phoning the police?

Sent in by William Volterman
The person knew it was not alfred because HE was the killer. He called outside the office... threatened to kill him on the phone walked in and shot him. Then played the message after.

The answer to number 60 in the riddle section is "zero."  If you divide zero in half you get zero.
Submitted by Rhonda Kilfoyle

Sent in by Alfred Jones
"8"

However if the brothers all handed over £10 each but received £1 discount, then they only spent £9 each...so in total they spent 3x9 = £27 and tipped the assistant £2, but 27+2 only equals 29??? were did the other £1 go!!!

The question is misleading. The question states they paid £27 plus the £2 tip = £29. However in reality the tip is already included in the £27 they paid £25 [£30 - £5] + £2 tip = £27 [3 x £9]
Tini Garske

A man is standing in front of three light switches and then there is a shut door. He is only allowed to go through the door once and there he will see three light bulbs. By turning any light bulbs on or off the man must be able to know which light switch goes with which light bulb. E.g. He can turn two on and know which switch is for the unlit bulb but will remain uncertain about the other two.

Sent in by Ian Olliver
A man is pushing his car across London. He eventually arrives outside a hotel in Park Lane and there discovers he has become bankrupt. How has this happened?