Math Riddles Jokes
Q: Why should you never mention the number 288 in front of anyone?
A: Because it is too gross (2 x 144 - two gross).
Q: How is the moon like a dollar?
A: They both have 4 quarters.
Q: How can you add eight 8's to get the number 1,000? (only using addition)
A: 888 +88 +8 +8 +8 = 1,000
Q: What is the smallest three digit palindrome divisible by 18? Can you solve this without a brute force examination of possibilities?
A: 252
Q: How many eggs can you put in an empty basket?
A: Only one, after that the basket is not empty.
Q: Where can you buy a ruler that is 3 feet long?
A: At a yard sale
Q: When things go wrong, what can you always count on?
A: Your fingers.
Q: What coin doubles in value when half is deducted?
A: A half dollar.
Q: What has 3 feet but no toes?
A: A yard stick.
Q: How do you make seven even?
A: Remove the 's'
Q: Why are diapers like 100 dollar bills?
A: They need to be changed.
Q: What goes up and never comes down?
A: Your Age
Q: Why is the longest human nose on record only 11 inches long?
A: Otherwise it would be a foot.
Q: Why do they never serve beer at a math party?
A: Because you can't drink and derive...
Q: Why didn't the quarter roll down the hill with the nickel?
A: Because it had more cents.
Q: Why is 6 afraid of 7?
A: Because 7 8(ate) 9
Q: What is a proof?
A: One-half percent of alcohol.
Q: What did one math book say to the other?
A: Don't bother me I've got my own problems!
My girlfriend's the square root of -100. A perfect 10, but purely imaginary.
Fruit Boxes
There are three boxes. One has apples, one has oranges and the other has apples and oranges.
The boxes are labeled wrong so that no label is correct.
Kelly opens just one box, and without looking in the box, takes out one piece of fruit.
She looks at the fruit and immediately labels all the boxes correctly. Which box did she open and how did she know?
Kelly opened the mixed fruit box first. She knows because the fruit she pulled had a label on the box that matched the fruit that she pulled.
If She knows the labels are incorrect then she would know that it was not the apple box if she pulled an apple.
She would then know that the box that says mixed would be the orange box because the apple label was not available as it was on the box that she pulled the apple from. That would leave the orange label to remain on the apple box.
Beer
You have a barrel of beer and you need to measure out just one gallon.
How do you do this if you only have a three-gallon container and a five-gallon container?
Answer:
Fill the 3 gallon container with beer and pour it into the 5 gallon container.
Then fill the 3-gallon container again and keep pouring it into the 5-gallon container till the latter is full to the brim.
One gallon will be left in the 3-gallon container.
Two Fathers Two Sons
Two fathers and two sons sat down to eat eggs for breakfast. They ate exactly three eggs, each person had an egg. Explain
The riddle is for you to explain how one of the 'fathers' is also a grandfather.
Therefore the other father is both a son and a father to the grandson.
In other words, the one father is both a son and a father.
How Much
Jake weighs half as much as Joe, and John weighs three times as much as Jake. Together, they weigh 720 pounds. How much does each man weigh?
Answer:
If Jake weighs twice as much as Joe, and John three times as much, dividing their total weight by six gives us Jake's weight (think x + 2x + 3x = 720). 720 divided by 6 tells us that Jake weighs 120 pounds, so Joe weighs 240 pounds and John weighs 360 pounds.
The Merchant
The Merchant
A merchant can place 8 large boxes or 10 small boxes into a carton for shipping.
In one shipment, he sent a total of 96 boxes. If there are more large boxes than small boxes, how many cartons did he ship?
11 cartons total
7 large boxes (7 * 8 = 56 boxes)
4 small boxes (4 10 = 40 boxes
11 total cartons and 96 boxes
Father of Algebra
Diophantus was a Greek mathematician who lived in the third century. He was one of the first mathematicians to use algebraic symbols.
Most of what is known about Diophantus's life comes from an algebraic riddle from around the early sixth century. The riddle states:
Diophantus's youth lasted one sixth of his life. He grew a beard after one twelfth more. After one seventh more of his life, he married. 5 years later, he and his wife had a son. The son lived exactly one half as long as his father, and Diophantus died four years after his son.
How many years did Diophantus live?
Answer:
The riddle, the "facts" of which may or may not be true, results in the following equation:
x/6 + x/12 + x/7 + 5 + x/2 + 4 = x
where x is Diophantus's age at the time of his death.
Therefore, Diophantus lived exactly 84 years
Sum-Day
Some people believe that January 1, 2000 is the first day of the 21st century. Other people believe that the honor belongs to January 1, 2001. But everyone should agree that January 1, 2002 is the first "sum-day" of the new century- when you write out that date in standard notation, it becomes 01/01/02, and 1+1=2. More generally, a sum-day is a date in which the day and month add up to the year. With that in mind:
A) What is the last sum-day of the 21st century?
B) How many sum-days are there in the 21st century?
Answer:
A) The last sum-day of the 21st century is December 31, 2043, because 12+31=43, and both the month and day are as big as possible.
B) This one is much easier than you might think. The correct answer is 365, because every day in a standard (non-leap) year is part of a sum-day for some year. For example, November 26 is a sum-day for the year 2037, because 11+26=37. The only date for which this principle doesn't work is the leap day, February 29. That's because 2+29=31, but 2031 is not a leap year.
Bus
Your on a bus with ten people on it. The first stop 7 get off and 2 get on. The next stop has 2 get off and 8 get on. The next stop 4 get off and 2 get on. The final stop has no one gets on and no one gets off. How many people are on the bus? If you chose 9, then you are dumb. The answer is 10. Because of the bus driver. And I said "people" not "children"