Math Riddles

These Math Riddles are based on math concepts and can be solved with a bit of math and logic. These fun riddles can surely give you a tough time.

10 Cigarette Butts

Bruce is an inmate at a large prison, and like most of the other prisoners, he smokes cigarettes. During his time in the prison, Bruce finds that if he has 3 cigarette butts, he can cram them together and turn them into 1 full cigarette. Whenever he smokes a cigarette, it turns into a cigarette butt.

One day, Bruce is in his cell talking to one of his cellmates, Steve.

“I really want to smoke 5 cigarettes today, but all I have are these 10 cigarette butts,” Bruce tells Steve. “I’m not sure that will be enough.”

“Why don’t you borrow some of Tom’s cigarette butts?” asks Steve, pointing over to a small pile of cigarette butts on the bed of their third cellmate, Tom, who is out for the day on a community service project.

“I can’t,” Bruce says. “Tom always counts exactly how many cigarette butts are in his pile, and he’d probably kill me if he noticed that I had taken any.”

However, after thinking for a while, Bruce figures out a way that he can smoke 5 cigarettes without angering Tom. What is his plan?

Riddle Answer

The Jeweler and the Five Rings

A king asks a learned man to visit his palace, to which the learned man responds: “I will come some day next month, but I will not tell you on which day. Further, you must give me gold in grams equal to the date on which I come.”

In preparation for the visit, the king demands that his jeweler make gold rings of 1 to 31 grams.

The wise jeweler made only 5 rings. What are their weights?

Riddle Answer