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Barry has 2 candles that are both 60 centimetres long. One will last for 1 hour, and the other will last for 2 hours.

Barry lights both candles at the same time. Later, he blows them out at the same time.

The next day, Barry realises that one of the candles is half the length of the other.

Assuming they both burnt evenly, how long were they burning for?

Have you ever struggled to pack balls back into your toy box? The Fields Medal, one of the most famous prizes in mathematics, was recently announced. One of this year’s winners, Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska, is an expert in packing balls in boxes. But there’s a catch! Her findings work in 8 dimensions (D) and beyond.

This traditional Chinese puzzle, known as a tangram, reveals some surprising properties of squares!

Can you find 5 consecutive (counting upwards) numbers that add up to 80?

Difficulty: Fun A fast passenger train leaves Sydney Central station, headed for Broken Hill. At the same time, a slow freight train, moving at only half the speed of the passenger train, leaves Broken Hill station, headed for Sydney Central. When they meet, which train is closer to Sydney?

It sounds like a perfect way to make money – scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) are now selling random numbers over the internet! But before you start your own business writing whatever number pops into your head, there’s something special about these numbers.

How many 1s does it take to write out the number eleven thousand, eleven hundred and eleven?

A farmer goes to the local mill to get some wheat ground into flour. The miller doesn’t ask for money – instead, they take one tenth of the wheat as payment. If the farmer wants 100 kilograms (kg) of flour at the end, how much wheat should they bring?

The soma cube is a tricky puzzle! First, you’ll glue some cubes together into strange shapes. Then see if you can get those shapes to come together!

Difficulty: Extreme! Srinivasa lives in a house on a short street, with houses on one side. The houses are numbered 1, 2, 3 and so on. He was practicing his addition when he noticed something strange.