Lateral Thinking
Riddles that require creative, “outside the box” thinking.
The Complex Challenge
I am not alive, but I grow; I don’t have lungs, but I need air; I don’t have a mouth, but water kills me. What am I?
Answer: Fire
The Riddle of Knowledge
What grows the more it is shared?
Answer: Knowledge
The Thought Experiment
What has a head and a tail but no body?
Answer: A coin
The Time Traveler’s Dilemma
A time traveler goes back in time and kills his grandfather before his father is conceived. What happens?
Answer: A logical paradox known as the grandfather paradox, where the time traveler's existence becomes impossible.
The Impossible Escape
You are trapped in a room with three doors. One leads to a room of blazing fire, one to a room with assassins with loaded guns, and the third to a room with lions that haven’t eaten in three years. Which door do you open?
Answer: The door with the lions, as lions that haven't eaten in three years would be dead.
The Invisible Traveler
I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?
Answer: A map
The Paradoxical Container
What can be broken, but is never held?
Answer: A promise
The Weightless Mystery
What is always coming but never arrives?
Answer: Tomorrow
The Unstoppable Force
What moves faster: heat or cold?
Answer: Heat, because you can catch a cold
The Magic Word
What 8-letter word can have a letter taken away and it still makes a word. Take another letter away and it still makes a word. Keep on doing that until you have one letter left. What is the word?
Hint: Begin with words that have "ing" at the end.
Answer: Starting: "Starting", "Staring", "String", "Sting", "Sing", "Sin", "In", "I"