Blog

Difficulty: Fun On my bookshelf, my favourite book is the third from the left, and it’s the seventh from the right. How many books are there on that shelf?

Folding origami cranes and paper aeroplanes is fun, but they tend to be made of straight lines. So what happens when you fold in curves?

Skewers are straight and pretty tough. But put just the right twist on them, and you can make something surprisingly curvy!

For an entire day, Ruth watched a dial clock, looking for when the hands met. She wrote down all the times they met. Which hour did the hands not meet?

Billie is really in to sneakers and is aiming to sell them for a profit. Work out if Billie made money, lost money, or sold the sneakers at their original price.

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?

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?

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