The Puzzle Page

by: Erik Oosterwal

Custom Search

2 = 1? Here's a way to prove that 2 is equal to 1. See if you can figure out what's wrong with the proof.

4 = 5? This brain teaser demonstrates a way to prove that 4 is equal to 5. It's a bit tricky.

5 times 2 is 7? Can you insert the correct arithmetic operators to make the equation true?

7 and 7 and 7 and 7 are 56 Use basic arithmetic operators to turn four 7s into 56.

Artful Arithmetic Professor Egghead has a student who has discovered a new way to compare fractions. Can you discover if the method is valid?

Barrels Full of Pellets In this classic puzzle you have to find the barrel that holds the odd sized pellets. It's a real stumper and a great way to learn about sets of numbers.

Bobbing for Apples There's a very strange number of apples in the grocer's cart; can you figure out how many apples there are and solve this mind bender?

The Disappearing Tile Cut the triangle into 4 pieces, rearrange the pieces and all of a sudden there's an extra square.

Going to St. Ives In this old Nursery Rhyme you meet a strange man travelling with a lot of extras. You have to see if you can count all the travellers heading towards St. Ives.

Hobos and Cigars An industrious hobo can make whole cigars from discarded butts. How many can he make?

How Old Are They Now? Remember all those word problems from highschool algebra class? You know the ones I'm talking about; this person was twice as old as that person was when some other person was only half as old as they could have been... If you liked those, then you'll be sure to like this one, and if you hated those age problems in highschool then you can copy this and send it to all your friends, just to make them frustrated.

I Want Candy Donna's got a problem. She's been buying different amounts of candy for the last three weeks and now wants to buy one pound of four different kinds of candy, but she doesn't know if she has enough money to pay for it all. If you can crack this little puzzle you can consider yourself a very smart person.

Knot or Not?

The Lawn Boys Just how many boys does it take to mow a lawn? Read the problem carefully to figure out this brainteaser.

Magic Carpet

More Barrels and More Pellets

The Motel Room Suddenly a dollar has disappeared. Where did it go and who's responsible?

Odd Arithmetic Find the set of sequential odd numbers that add up to the given values.

One Plus One Equals Ten? It's not too difficult to figure out as long as you know your numbering systems

Really, Really, Really Big Numbers They're big. They're huge! They're the biggest numbers in the universe!!!

Shingles and Apples A young boy makes a quick decision about selling his father's apples and loses money in the exchange. Figure out where the money went.

Simple Algebra Use algebra to solve these two equations with two unknown values.

Strange Safari

Taking Notes In a classroom filled with students taking notes, how long does it take to fill up the notebooks?

Taxi Ride

Three Beggars

Three Squares in 2008 It's a timely puzzle for the new year.

The Vicar and the Sexton

The Watchdog In this calculus puzzle you have to figure out how much area the watchdog patrols. It's a very difficult brainteaser with a somewhat surprising answer.

When First the Marriage Knot was Ty'd Read this poem and figure out how old the bride and bridegroom are.

Who Gets Paid the Most? See if you can read through the confusing questions and solve which of the four employees earns the highest pay.

The Dinner Party It all started out as a nice dinner between eight people and ended up being a tough nut to crack. Use the clues to figure out who the guests were and where they were seated.

Hunters and Cabins

International Neighborhood

The Joker

Who Owns the Fish? It's been said that Albert Einstein created this brainteaser. Can you solve this puzzle and figure out who has the fish?

Who's Got the Goat?

A Cabbage, a Goat, and a Tiger This is the old riddle about a man travelling with a tiger, a goat, and a cabbage. Can you help him get across the river without losing any of his possessions?

A Small Town Affair

AIDS and HIV This test was given to a class of nursing students to help demonstrate the difficulty in determining risks and tracking sources of infection. There are some implied actions in relation to this subject matter, but there is nothing graphic or explicit. See if you have what it takes to be a medical forensics expert.

Behind the Green Door There's a prisoner, a tiger, and two doors to choose. One leads to freedom, the other leads to a nice snack... ...for the tiger.

Crossing the Bridge Four men, one rickety old bridge, and only one flashlight for them all to share. How quickly can you get all four men across the bridge?

Hobos and Cigars The rails have been riden and the bindle has been tied; how many cigars can the hobo make from discarded butts?

How Can It Be True? See if you can figure out a good explaination for these wacky questions. They're sure to make you think outside the box.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Surgical Gloves There are plenty of puzzles about surgeons who have to operate on patients but are running low on gloces. This is the first in a series of several variations on a theme.

Surgical Gloves - Part 2 This is the second in a series of logistics puzzles. These puzzles have applications in real life where it is necessary to schedule multiple tasks and resources between different operators. Try this out to see if you could make it in the business world as a logistics expert.

Taxi Ride - Part 2

The Mad Hatter

Two and a Half Boys Here's a puzzle about a rather odd family arrangement. How can it be?

Victorian Boat Ride If you liked the one about the tiger, the goat, and the cabbage, you'll love this little brainteaser about three couples trying to make their way back home without sacrificing their high moral standards.

Whodunnit? Here's a great brainteaser to introduce young puzzlers to the joy of logic puzzles. Teachers can use this one for their elementary or highschool students.

The Zoo

A Different Kind of Sudoku Here's a variation on sudoku. See if you can fill in the 5x5 grid with (x,y) pairs. Be careful! You can't repeat x and y values in any row, column, or diagonal.

Dropdown Puzzle #1 Some call them droplines, others call them quotefalls. See if you can figure out the the answer by filling in the squares.

Just a Nybble Here's a unique crossnumber puzzle that's all in binary. It's a great puzzle for students learning about the binary number system and boolean algebra.

Little Pigsby Farm This little puzzle is a favorite. Read the clues carefully and fill in the squares with the right numbers. It's a crossnumber puzzle that's sure to please everyone who likes brain teasers, but be warned, it's fairly difficult.

A Simple Crossnumber Puzzle Here's a crossword type puzzle for people who aren't very good with words--it's all numbers.

Super Simple Sudoku Are you tired of all those tough sudoku puzzles? Do you wish there were easier ones that you could share with younger puzzlers or others who don't have patience for the 9 x 9 sudoku puzzles. These little 4 x 4 squares are sure to please every budding brainbuster fan.

Fathers and Sons Read the clues carefully. Are you sure you know who this man is?

Fish and Chips It's all so confusing! Help!

Had Had Had Had...had...had...had...had...had... ...What?

The Longest Word with only One Vowel

New Door Sure it's new, but can you turn it into something else?

Synograms There's a lot of Synogram pairs out there, how many can you come up with?

Toti Emu Lesto Is it a wordplay puzzle or a cryptogram? Read the clues and see if you can find the answer.

We Eat What We Can It's as bad as that age old question about how much the woodchuck could chuck, only now it's all about the food.

What's the Word?

Circling a Chess Board How big of a circle can you inscribe on a standard chess board?

Draw the Line Disect a circle into four equal parts using three lines.

Star Spangled Triangles How many triangles can you create when you bisect a 5 point star with one straight line?

Triangles in a Cube This puzzle will surely delight all of you who like geometry and 3-D spatial relationships. It's not difficult, but may be a bit tricky to picture in your mind's eye.

1 to 12 in a Cross Fill in the individual squares so that each 4 x 4 square has the same sum.

1 to 19 in a Honeycomb See if you can fill in all the cells with numbers. There's a hitch, though. In this brainteaser you can't let similar sized numbers get too close.

12 I in a F Can you figure out what missing words are represented by the letters I and F. It's a 'fill in the blanks' brain teaser that's appropriate for elementary and high school students, as well as all the rest of us 'old-timers'.

12 N on the F of a C There's twelve of something on the whatchacallit of a thingamajig. Help a fellow puzzle fan solve this little doozy.

4 plus 5 equal 10? Here's a tricky little stumper that will keep you wondering "How in the world can it be solved?" It's only easy if you know the answer.

5 Pointed Star Find the smallest sum possible along each line.

6 Pointed Magic Star You'd never believe how many different ways you can arrange the numbers 1 through 12 on a six-pointed star.

8 Boxes

8 Pointed Magic Star One of The Puzzle Page readers sent in a solution to this one, but it's not been posted yet. See if you can solve this one before the solution is made public.

A E F H I K L M N There are only six more letters in the series, see if you can figure out which ones they are.

Change for a Dollar? In this problem of combinatorics, can you discover all the ways to make change for a dollar when there are restrictions to the number of coins you can use?

It's Hip to be Square How many squares can you create?

M & M Here's a short series that's sure to keep you stumped for quite some time. This brainteaser is tougher than most numeric sequence puzzles.

The Magic Keyring Here's a unique series, or sequence, kind of brain twister. You have keys with numbers on them and you have to arrange them in a special way on a circular keyring. It's a lot tougher than you might think.

Needle in a Haystack It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. (I can't believe I went there...)

Numeric Series See if you can find the next entry in each of these series. Most are fairly easy.

Pigs in a Pen Help the farmer arrange his pigs in the pens. There's a catch, of course, can you figure out how to solve this puzzle? This is a puzzle that even kindergarten children can enjoy, but still has enough of a twist that older students will have to work on it too.

The Queen's Walk No one knows if it's the Queen of Hearts or some other queen, but she needs your help to figure out where she can be.

A Sequence of Numbers Professor Egghead tricked his students with this little sequence of numbers. How good are you at finding the relationship between numbers? Can you solve this mind stumper?

Seven Pair

Super Eight Pointed Magic Star It's not know if this brainteaser even has a solution. If you liked the 6-pointed star and 8-pointed star puzzles, then this one should keep you busy for a very long time.

Trace the Circuit

Trace the Circuit - Part 2

Trace the Circuit - Part 3

Walking Through the Mall Four friends head off to the mall to just hang out. Can you help them each get to their destination without getting wrapped up?

2 x 2 = 3

About Two Pounds There's a hidden question in this puzzle. This is a difficult cryptogram to solve. Try it, if you dare.

Aliens - 1 What can that strange writing be? Could it be the work of sinister Martians? Could it be the latest diary entry from that funny looking guy from Omicron Persei 8? Only you can solve this puzzler and know for sure.

Crypt-o-Math Here's a short collection of math problems where each of the digits has been replaced with a letter. Replace the letters with the right digits to solve the equations.

Cryptic Simple Math Find the message hidden in this array of numbers. This brainteaser should keep you busy for a little while.

Find the Hidden Message At first it looks like just a bunch of numbers written out in a large matrix, but there's a lot more there. Figure out what the relatinoship is between the numbers to discover the message hidden inside.

Germanic Runes - 1 It's an enigma that's almost as mysterious as the Kensington Rune Stone. See if you have what it takes to read the runes.

Famous People Quotes - 1

Movie Quotes - 1 This cryptogram is very short, which makes it rather difficult to solve. It helps if you're up on your movie trivia.

Old Meets New in Reverse

Oprowon Lumgalm It looks like it should mean something but the words look very strange. If you're new to simple cyphers, this is a good place to start.

The Red Herring Here's a truly difficult cryptogram. If you enjoyed trying to figure out the Find the Hidden Message puzzle listed above, then you'll be sure to enjoy this one--it's a tough mindbender that should keep you busy for a very long time. It might even be the hardest cryptogram you've ever tried to solve.

The Puzzle Page

All original puzzles and solutions are © Erik Oosterwal 1993-2008