Riddles

[Blightmare]

so, I recently just discovered this riddle saved on an old flash drive. This is from years ago and I don't remember what the answer was and I thought I'd pose the riddle to you guys to see if any of you can make sense of it. Probably not gonna be helpful since I can't confirm if any of the answers are right, but whatever, worth a shot.

 

"Lunar Eclipse In China," Read a headline newspaper you held in your hands. Another read "Positioning of Mercury and Venus As Well As Other Heavenly Bodies Offer Unobstructed view of Sun for Astrologists."

 

Why that was so special is not the question of the riddle, so don't bother.

 

You lean back on your cot on your personal island directly on the Equator. There was no wind, no clouds, no birds, no airplanes, no one else on the island-- nothing to disturb you.

 

How you managed to get that island is also not the question.

 

Out of sheer boredom, you decide to fold a piece of paper 50 times. By not only noon, but solar noon, you somehow managed to complete this task.

 

How you managed to complete the task, or where you got the paper, is not the question either.

 

You look at your work, turn away for one second to grab the phone to alert Guiness World Records of your achievement.

 

Why Guiness would listen to you is not important.

 

When you turn back, you look in horror that your paper that you had folded 50 times has disappeared.

 

Your Question: What happened to it?

Edited October 13, 2012 by Guest (see edit history)

[Mr. ShinyObject]

It is not important.

[Pinkie Pie]

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[Doctor Felix Whooves]

Mind=fucked

[danielsangeo]

My mind can't get passed the concept of folding a piece of paper 50 times. If they're folds where the paper is folded in half, you can't get above 7 very easily and 50 is just right out (due to the exponential growing in thickness--fold once = 2 sheet thickness, fold twice = 4 sheet thickness, then 8 sheet, then 16 sheet, then 32 sheet, then 64 sheet, then 128 sheet...after that, you're just screwed); so unless the folds are not even...

 

But that's not important.

[Psychotic Ninja]

It's simple: You put it in your pocket when you went to get the phone.

[Mr. ShinyObject]

Real answer:

 

 

Your piece of paper (assuming it was of normal 8.5 x 11) is now .000 000 000 000 754 951 by .000 000 000 000 976 996 inchs. Thats roughly point .0002 angstroms, which is smaller than an electron.

 

You didin't see it when you turned around because it phased through watever you set it on, or it's too thin for the naked eye, or it started spliting atoms and started a nuclear explosion, there are multiple possibilities.

 

 

So kind of what Dan said.

[Blightmare]

That's possible, but given that some riddles generally sacrifice realism for metaphors, it could be anything.

 

Idunno. I guess I feel like that answer was too easy lol.

[danielsangeo]

I'm reminded of a Mythbusters episode where they investigated the Can't Fold More Than X Times claim and they found a material you could fold more than 7 times. It was an ultrathin fabric that was the size of a large aircraft hangar. They got to, I believe, 9 folds before they couldn't fold it anymore. And, like Mr. Shinyobject alluded to, the hangar-size piece of fabric got down to about the width of a standard human being and just about half as tall before they couldn't fold it anymore. And that was less than 10 folds. So, 50 folds...

[Humin]

I remember them getting to 22 with the thing being a meter (give or take) tall.

[danielsangeo]

You could be right.

[Collective Foal]

Daniel, I hope you know that your pumpkin is impossible.

[ProHypster]

Well I guess this belongs here too then, when I was a child my mother told me the riddle about the hunter and the dog, this riddle should teach you that not all riddles are the in same style.

 

A hunter went into a forest with his dog, when he tripped on a branch, accidentally shot his dog and fell on spikes. Who survived?

 

I'm just going to put the answer here, it's not worth talking about it.

 

Answer:

The bird that was flying over them this whole time.

 

 

Anyway, my mother often made impossible word play riddles.

 

And then there's this shit which I haven't "really" found the answer to and probably there is no clear answer to this, if anyone knows a real answer to this bravo... if you came up that the math formula implied here is wrong you are where I am:

 

"Let's say I borrowed 100 Roubles from my friend,

went to a store and lost them,

met my girlfriend, borrowed 50 roubles from her,

bought 2 chocolates, 10 roubles each,

I have 30 roubles left,

I gave them to my friend and still owe him 70 Roubles,

and to my girlfriend I owe 50 roubles, So 120,

plus I have 2 chocolates, So 140 Roubles,

Where are 10 Roubles???"

[Psychotic Ninja]

 

And then there's this shit which I haven't "really" found the answer to and probably there is no clear answer to this, if anyone knows a real answer to this bravo... if you came up that the math formula implied here is wrong you are where I am:

 

"Let's say I borrowed 100 Roubles from my friend,

went to a store and lost them,

met my girlfriend, borrowed 50 roubles from her,

bought 2 chocolates, 10 roubles each,

I have 30 roubles left,

I gave them to my friend and still owe him 70 Roubles,

and to my girlfriend I owe 50 roubles, So 120,

plus I have 2 chocolates, So 140 Roubles,

Where are 10 Roubles???"

 

 

You have 0 Roubles, you borrow 100 Roubles from your friend, so now you have 100 Roubles.

 

You went to a store and lost 100 Roubles. You now have 0 Roubles.

 

You went to your girlfriend, and borrowed 50 roubles from her. You now have 50 Roubles.

 

You bought 2 chocolates, which is 10 Roubles each. You now have 30 Roubles.

 

You need to pay your friend a total of 100 Roubles. You give him 30 Roubles. You now have 0 Roubles and you owe your friend 70 Roubles.

 

You owe your girlfriend 50 Roubles. In grand total that's 120 Roubles you owe.

 

Let's not forget that you had 2 chocolates, so that's 20 Roubles, and 140 Roubles you owe in total.

 

The problem here is, you owe your friend 100 Roubles, and your girlfriend 50 Roubles, making a total of 150 Roubles, but after doing the math you end up having 140 Roubles. Now let's say you still had the 100 from your friend, and then you got the 50 from your girlfriend, so in total you would have the 150. You spent 20 for the two chocolates, which would leave you with 130. You then give your friend 30 back, thus leaving you with 100. You still owe your friend 70, and your girlfriend 50. 100 minus 50 is , well 50. Now let's say you didn't buy the chocolate, you would have 20 more Roubles, giving you the 70 you owe your friend.

 

All I can say after that is, somehow you did the math wrong, how I'm not sure, all I know is what I've typed, and the fact that I've seen this kind of riddle somewhere else, altered, but concept the same.

[ProHypster]

Obviously the math is wrong, that's implied in the riddle. But what exactly is wrong?

 

I have a feeling you can't really answer that riddle. I mean all I came up with was that math just doesn't work when you mix what you owe with what you have and what you bought. In any case everything works perfectly without the chocolates, it's when you add the chocolates that shit gets serious (Is that how you say it?)

 

I'm not even close to answering the original question, where the 10 roubles went. Only answer I can come up with is that they never existed in the first place.

 

Anyway that's the thing with riddles, they all come in different formats and even when there is a question the answer could easily be not related to the question or material written in the riddle. In fact the whole riddle could be some kind of complete nonsense which somehow though gives some logical outcome that other people would agree is the answer after they know it....

 

EDIT: Again I thought about it, and there's definetly something fishy about calculating the chocolates into the money you owe. Yet then there is no clear formula how to count how much you owed in the begining if you do buy chocolates.. No other numbers add up to 150 as far as I know, there is also the 100 roubles you lost in the beggining which could also be counted as a loss....

[Blightmare]

I'm about to crank out 15 monopoly 10's and do this physical because the math in my head and on paper isn't adding up, but there's no way for 10 dollars to just disappear like that.

 

Edit:

 

I think I got it (monopoly money didn't help btw)

 

the 10 never went anywhere. in fact, the math in the original is wrong and we're trying to figure it out based off the wrong math. lets skip to the end:

 

you owe 150, have 30. pay someone the 30(doesn't matter who, actually), and you owe 120. IF you factor in the chocolate, you do not add it to the debt, but subtract it. because say you never bought the chocolate, that'd give you another 20 to pay back to someone. in the case of the riddle, which is implying that you gave that money to the friend, you'd owe 100 still, 50 to each. So nothing was lost. in fact, because the way they did the math, 40 in debt came out of absolutely nowhere. Well, 20, factoring in the actual chocolate purchase.

 

When I look back at the riddle, it words it as if you acquired 2 chocolates without paying for them, and lost 20 for an unstated reason, causing you to owe a third person 20. It also makes you think you have to reach 150 because that's how much you originally owed when in fact, you really owed 100, 120 including the chocolate you bought.

 

Clever way to play with the mind, actually.

[Collective Foal]

Reading Rarity's statement, it all makes sense. I kinda want another one, but I could just leave an easy one for you to tear through and boost your confidence.

 

Jack, without the aid of any cushion or material to break it's fall, holds an egg over a solid concrete floor and drops it 3 feet without it breaking. How?

[Humin]

It didn't say he dropped it on the concrete floor.

[Blightmare]

I went ahead and changed the name of the thread. If you got a riddle, go ahead and post it.

[Doctor Felix Whooves]

There is a large box, there are no openings, inside the box is a chare and a saw. How do you get out of the box?