50 Math Riddles
Brain teasers, number puzzles & logic riddles — with answers
1. I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What number am I?
Answer: Seven (remove 's' -> 'even')
2. What is the next number in the sequence: 2, 4, 8, 16, ...?
Answer: 32 (doubling each time)
3. If you have 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?
Answer: 2 (you took them, so you have them)
4. What number, when added to itself, gives the same result as when multiplied by itself?
Answer: 2 (2+2=4, 2x2=4)
5. A farmer has 17 sheep, all but 9 die. How many are left?
Answer: 9
6. What is half of 2 plus 2?
Answer: 3 (half of 2 is 1, plus 2 = 3)
7. What is the sum of all numbers from 1 to 10?
Answer: 55
8. Which weighs more: a kilogram of feathers or a kilogram of bricks?
Answer: Neither, they weigh the same
9. I am a three-digit number. My tens digit is five more than my units digit. My hundreds digit is eight
less than my tens digit. What number am I?
Answer: 194
10. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?
Answer: The letter 'M'
11. There are 5 apples in a basket. How do you divide them among 5 kids so each gets one apple,
but one apple stays in the basket?
Answer: Give the last kid the basket with the apple still in it
12. What number is one more than one hundred thousand?
Answer: 100,001
13. If two's company and three's a crowd, what are four and five?
Answer: 9
14. What number becomes zero when you subtract 15 from half of it?
Answer: 30
15. How many times can you subtract 5 from 25?
Answer: Once — after that you're subtracting from 20
16. A clock strikes once at 1 o'clock, twice at 2 o'clock, and so on. How many times does it strike in
12 hours?
Answer: 78
17. What is the smallest number that is divisible by both 2 and 3?
Answer: 6
18. I am a number. Double me and add 5, you get 21. What number am I?
Answer: 8
19. What three positive numbers give the same result when multiplied and added together?
Answer: 1, 2, and 3 (1+2+3=6, 1x2x3=6)
20. If a rooster lays an egg on top of a barn roof, which way does it roll?
Answer: Roosters don't lay eggs
21. What number do you get when you multiply all the numbers on a telephone keypad?
Answer: 0 (because of the 0 key)
22. What is the value of x if 2x + 3 = 11?
Answer: x = 4
23. How many sides does a hexagon have?
Answer: 6
24. What is the square root of 144?
Answer: 12
25. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long does it take 100 machines to
make 100 widgets?
Answer: 5 minutes
26. A man buys a horse for $60, sells it for $70, buys it back for $80, and sells it again for $90. How
much profit did he make?
Answer: $20
27. What is the missing number: 1, 4, 9, 16, __, 36?
Answer: 25 (perfect squares)
28. I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am
I?
Answer: A map
29. What is 7 x 8?
Answer: 56
30. Using only addition, how do you add eight 8's to get the number 1000?
Answer: 888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1000
31. What number is spelled in alphabetical order?
Answer: Forty
32. How many degrees are in the angles of a triangle altogether?
Answer: 180
33. What is the next prime number after 7?
Answer: 11
34. If you multiply this number by any other number, the answer is always the same. What number
is it?
Answer: 0
35. A father is 4 times as old as his son. In 20 years, he'll be twice as old. How old is the son now?
Answer: 10 years old
36. What number, when you subtract 4 and then multiply by 3, gives you 21?
Answer: 11
37. Two fathers and two sons go fishing. Each catches one fish, but only 3 fish are caught in total.
How?
Answer: There were only 3 people: grandfather, father, and son
38. What is 100 divided by half?
Answer: 200 (dividing by 1/2 means multiplying by 2)
39. How many minutes are there in exactly one day?
Answer: 1440
40. What comes next: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, __?
Answer: 13 (Fibonacci sequence)
41. I am a number whose digits add up to 9, and I am the smallest 3-digit number with this property.
Answer: 108
42. What is the perimeter of a square with a side length of 6 cm?
Answer: 24 cm
43. If a train travels 60 km in 1 hour, how far does it travel in 15 minutes at the same speed?
Answer: 15 km
44. What do you call a number that can only be divided by 1 and itself?
Answer: A prime number
45. What is the sum of the interior angles of a quadrilateral?
Answer: 360 degrees
46. Three friends split a bill and each pays $10 (total $30). The waiter refunds $5, but they can only
split $3 evenly and tip $2. So each got $1 back and paid $9 (total $27), plus the $2 tip equals $29.
Where did the missing dollar go?
Answer: There is no missing dollar — the $27 already includes the $2 tip; adding it again is the
error
47. What is the value of pi rounded to two decimal places?
Answer: 3.14
48. If you flip a coin 3 times, how many possible outcomes are there?
Answer: 8
49. What number is neither positive nor negative?
Answer: 0
50. A snail climbs 3m up a wall every day but slips back 2m every night. If the wall is 10m tall, how
many days does it take to reach the top?
Answer: 8 days