The riddle thread! (Page 2)

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Yama
@Yama
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A long, long time ago, two Egyptian camel drivers were fighting for the hand of the daughter of the sheik of Abbudzjabbu. The sheik, who liked neither of these men to become the future husband of his daughter, came up with a clever plan: a race would determine who of the two men would be allowed to marry his daughter. And so the sheik organized a camel race. Both camel drivers had to travel from Cairo to Abbudzjabbu, and the one whose camel would arrive last in Abbudzjabbu, would be allowed to marry the sheik's daughter.
The two camel drivers, realizing that this could become a rather lengthy expedition, finally decided to consult the Wise Man of their village. Arrived there, they explained him the situation, upon which the Wise Man raised his cane and spoke four wise words. Relieved, the two camel drivers left his tent: they were ready for the contest!
Which 4 wise words did the Wise Man speak?
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MellowDee
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Ok I found it. This took me ages to do when I did it over a year ago. I've forgotten the solution process at this stage but it's a nice meaty puzzle that keeps you intrigued and exasperated for a few hours! Here it is:

Who owns the Zebra?

The following puzzle is a fine example of what I call ?detective puzzles:? Based on clues supplied in a narrative, one is to answer a question by applying simple, man-on-the-street logic to the information (not all of it relevant) supplied.

On an odd little street in the town of Somewhere, there are five house in a row. Each house is a different colour, each is inhabited by a woman of different nationality, and the owner of the houses also have their differences: each owner has a different pet, prefers a different drink and works in a different profession. A detective, charged with the task of discovering who drinks water and who owns the Zebra, gathered the following information, itemized for your convenience:

1. The Englishwoman lives in the red house.
2. The Spaniard owns a dog.
3. Coffee is drunk in the green house
4. The Ukrainian drinks tea.
5. The green house is immediately to the right of the Ivory house.
6. The engineer owns the snail.
7. The diplomat lives in the yellow house.
8. Milk is drunk in the middle house.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.
10. The doctor lives next to the owner of the fox.
11. The diplomat lives next to the owner of the horse.
12. The teacher drinks orange juice.
13. The carpenter is Japanese.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
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Lady_M
@Lady_M
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Heres another:

The King & the Coin-operated Weighing Machine
Once upon a time (or slightly thereafter) there lived a mean and miserly king who collected ten bars of silver in taxes from each of his ten duchies every year. Each bar weighed one pound. One year the tax collector arrived with the ten boxes of bars, as usual, each labeled with the name of the duke who sent it. This time, however, the tax collector looked worried.

"What troubles you, my good man?"

"Alas, Sire. I suspect one of thy dukes hath shortchanged thee, filching an ounce of silver from each bar."

"And who might that be?" roared the king.

"It is none other than Duke . . . " The tax collector fell dead, a knife thrown by an unseen hand quivering in his back. (The assassin was never found, obviously, otherwise this puzzle would be dead in the water.)

Although the king had no regular balance at his disposal, he had a coin-operated weighing machine, the ancient kind that told both your weight and your fortune when you put a penny in it. Unfortunately, he had only one penny left. How did he determine the guilty Duke?

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Lady_M
@Lady_M
19 Years10,000+ Posts

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ANSWER
The king arranged the boxes in a row, then took one bar from the first box, two from the second, three from the third, and so on. If none of the dukes had cheated, the total weight of coins on the scale would have been 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 = 55 lbs. Instead, he found the scales registering 54 lbs and 12 oz, which meant that 4 ounces were missing. They could only have come from box number 4, sent by the Duke of . . . arghh!