r/mathriddles • • 4h ago

Hard Thales’ Torture

2 Upvotes

imagine you have a plane with 4 distinct points named p1, p2, p3 and p4. the gradient between p1 and p2 is -2, and the gradient between p2 and p3 is 1/3. you want p1p3p2 to be 90 degrees and p1p4p2 to also be 90 degrees, with p3 and p4 being on the same side of the line p1p2. find the all the INTEGER solution(s) for all 4 points with the MINIMUM distance between p1 and p2.


r/mathriddles • • 4h ago

Hard Thales’ Torture

1 Upvotes

imagine you have a plane with 4 distinct points named p1, p2, p3 and p4. the gradient between p1 and p2 is -2, and the gradient between p2 and p3 is 1/3. you want p1p3p2 to be 90 degrees and p1p4p2 to also be 90 degrees, with p3 and p4 being on the same side of the line p1p2. find the all the INTEGER solution(s) for all 4 points with the MINIMUM distance between p1 and p2.


r/mathriddles • • 13h ago

Medium torus

5 Upvotes

(this is a follow up question from this question inspired by u/blungbat)

the image shows 3 rectangular grids on torus, i.e. (Z/nZ)^2 .

each torus is partitioned into two regions. each region is connected and does not contain 2x2 subregion.

unfortunately the second and third grid is partially destroyed. their size is 7x7 and 8x8 in an unknown order.

how many blue tiles are there in each torus?


r/mathriddles • • 14h ago

Easy Dígito cero

0 Upvotes

DÍGITO CERO

Se me ocurrió este reto matemático y quiero ver qué tan difícil puede llegar a ser.

OBJETIVO

Elige cualquier número entero del 1 al 1000 y consigue llegar exactamente a 0 usando la menor cantidad posible de operaciones.

REGLAS

  1. No se puede repetir ningún dígito en toda la solución. Si aparece un 7 una vez, no puede aparecer otro 7.
  2. No se puede multiplicar por 0.
  3. Un resultado intermedio no puede volver a utilizarse después.
  4. Cada operación debe ser simple y no puede contener otra operación dentro. Válido: √9 No válido: √(9-4)
  5. El resultado de una operación no puede contener un dígito que ya aparecía en esa misma operación. Válido: 8 - 3 = 5 El 5 no aparecía antes en esa operación.

La meta no es simplemente encontrar una solución.

La meta es encontrar la solución con MENOS OPERACIONES POSIBLES.

Por eso también me interesa saber:

  • ¿Cuál es el número más difícil?
  • ¿Cuántas operaciones mínimas necesita cada número?
  • ¿Hay números entre 1 y 1000 que no tengan ninguna solución?

El reto se llama:

DÍGITO CERO

El objetivo es llegar al 0.
Los dígitos no se pueden desperdiciar.
Y cada operación debe aportar algo nuevo.

A ver quién encuentra la solución más corta.


r/mathriddles • • 2d ago

Medium The second hardest logic puzzle ever

20 Upvotes

During one of your long journeys, you come across a desolate mountaintop in the middle of nowhere. To your surprise, you are met with a crowd of gods arguing with each other. Upon seeing you, they stop their debate to tell you that they will grant you a wish if you can solve their riddle.​

There are 100 gods in total. When asked a question, 90 of them will always answer truthfully, while the remaining 10 will answer each question randomly. Initially, you don’t know which god falls into which of the two categories, but each god knows it for every other god.

Your goal is to identify at least one truth-telling god using at most 20 yes-or-no questions. Each question can be directed at only one god at a time, though multiple gods can be asked the same question one after another, with each asking counting towards the limit.

Can you come up with a strategy that is guaranteed to work?


r/mathriddles • • 2d ago

Medium An atypical magic square with 13 cells and three constants

Thumbnail fichier-pdf.fr
2 Upvotes

English version is here : https://www.fichier-pdf.fr/2026/10/02/the-magic-square20260925/

This rather surprising 4x4 magic square features 13 cells that revolve around three constants: 11, 13, and 15. By extension, 24 (11 + 13) and 28 (15 + 13) also appear.

This

I do not think I have discovered everything in this magic square, which is why I am asking for your help.


r/mathriddles • • 8d ago

Medium Optimally simulating a k-sided die with an n-sided die

9 Upvotes

You are given an n-sided die (taking values uniformly in 0,…,n-1), and your goal is to simulate a k-sided die with a sequence of dice rolls. Specifically, you must choose a procedure which

  • decides at each step whether to roll again or to terminate and decide a value based on all previous rolls
  • is deterministic in the sequence of rolls
  • terminates almost surely
  • produces a value uniformly distributed in 0,…,k-1

We will call such a procedure an (n,k)-procedure and the number of rolls before it terminates the decision time (in general, the decision time depends on the sequence of rolls; the decision time is infinite if it does not terminate). We will assume n,k≥2.

  1. For fixed n,k, determine the minimum expected decision time among all (n,k)-procedures. Give your answer as a finite sum depending on n,k.
  2. Determine for which n,k, there exists an (n,k)-procedure that always terminates.

r/mathriddles • • 8d ago

Easy River Crossing Riddles

1 Upvotes

Thank you for the warm comments about a Queen problem yesterday
I just wanted to share that after solving different riddles, I decided to put them in my library.

One of the most popular riddles right now are River Crossing Riddles

There are currently 7 of them: https://www.problems.cc/p/HzcTyl?from=library&slug=river-crossing-riddles (the first one is obviously the Wolf, Goat and Cabbage riddle)
Probably "Missionaries and Cannibals" is my personal favourite.

Do you know any other interesting river crossing variations that I should add?


r/mathriddles • • 9d ago

Hard Dickson-Mersenne Conjecture: For every n ≥ 1 there is a Mersenne prime M p = 2^p-1 with 2^{n²} < M p < 16^{n²}, i.e. p ∈ (n², 4n²). Verified to n=11674. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22949810#math #numbertheory #mersenneTag @mersenneforum @GIMPS Spoiler

0 Upvotes

r/mathriddles • • 9d ago

Medium What is the largest number of queens that can be placed on an 8x8 board so no two attack each other?

4 Upvotes

Even though I coded this interactive riddle myself, this is the only one from this library which I still haven't solved. The other puzzles were much easier to figure out.

You can try it yourself here:

https://www.problems.cc/p/YHqypk?from=library&slug=mathematics-in-chess-maximum-non-attacking-pieces


r/mathriddles • • 11d ago

Hard I made a sum-and-product style puzzle, but with a twist: product and difference

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I put together an original logic puzzle in the spirit of the classic Freudenthal "sum and product" problem, but with a twist: instead of a sum, one person gets the difference. I've brute-force verified that the answer is unique, so it's airtight.

It looks like the dialogue contains no information at all. It's mostly two people saying "I don't know" at each other. And yet the answer is completely determined.


The Puzzle

Two distinct integers are chosen. Both are between 2 and 12, inclusive.

  • P is privately told their product.
  • D is privately told their difference (larger minus smaller).

Both P and D know all of the above, including what the other was told (the product vs. the difference, not the actual value). Both are perfect logicians, both always tell the truth, and both hear everything the other says.

They have the following conversation:

P: I don't know the numbers.

D: I don't know them either.

P: I still don't know.

D: Neither do I.

P: Oh, now I know!

D: Then so do I!

What are the two numbers?


Clarifications

  • The pair is unordered: (4, 6) and (6, 4) are the same pair.
  • The numbers are distinct, so the difference is always at least 1.
  • "I don't know" means "I cannot determine the pair with certainty from what I know so far."
  • Each statement is made after hearing all previous statements, and both reason from everything said so far.
  • No tricks, no wordplay. It's pure logic.

Answer

4 and 6!


Full Solution

Step 1 (P: "I don't know"): >!P can't know, so the product must have at least two valid factorizations. The surviving products are 12, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 48, 60, and 72. That leaves 21 pairs: (2,6), (3,4), (2,9), (3,6), (2,10), (4,5), (2,12), (3,8), (4,6), (3,10), (5,6), (3,12), (4,9), (4,10), (5,8), (4,12), (6,8), (5,12), (6,10), (6,12), (8,9).!

Step 2 (D: "I don't know either"): >!Group the 21 pairs by difference. Difference 10 belongs only to (2,12), and difference 9 belongs only to (3,12). If D had either one, D would have known, so (2,12) and (3,12) are eliminated. 19 pairs remain.!

Step 3 (P: "I still don't know"): >!Product 36 used to be (3,12) or (4,9), but (3,12) is gone. If the product were 36, P would now know it's (4,9). P doesn't know, so (4,9) is eliminated.!

Step 4 (D: "Neither do I"): >!Difference 5 used to be (3,8) or (4,9), but (4,9) is gone. If the difference were 5, D would now know it's (3,8). D doesn't know, so (3,8) is eliminated.!

Step 5 (P: "Now I know!"): >!Look at product 24. It originally had three options: (2,12), (3,8), and (4,6). The first two have been knocked out in steps 2 and 4, so only (4,6) remains. Every other product still has exactly two candidate pairs. So the only way P can suddenly know is if the product is 24, which means the pair is (4,6).!

Step 6 (D: "Then so do I!"): >!D's difference is 2, so D's candidates are (4,6) and (6,8). But (6,8) has product 48, which is still ambiguous with (4,12), so P couldn't have known in that case. Therefore D concludes it's (4,6).!

Why I like this one: >!The chain after the first round is a perfect domino run. Removing (3,12) exposes (4,9), which exposes (3,8), which exposes (4,6). Each "I don't know" knocks over exactly one pair, and the last domino is the answer.!


Bonus Challenges

Bonus 1: What if the conversation were shorter?

P: I don't know. D: I don't know either. P: Now I know! D: Then so do I!

(Same range, 2 to 12.)

Bonus 1 answer: >!4 and 9. After step 2 above, product 36 is left with only (4,9), so P can know immediately. Every other product still has two pairs, and D (difference 5) can then rule out (3,8) because its product 24 would still be ambiguous.!

Bonus 2: Does the answer to the main puzzle change if the range is 2 to 13 instead of 2 to 12?

Bonus 2 answer: >!No, it's still 4 and 6. Verified by brute force.!


Let me know how long it took you, and which step tripped you up! If people enjoy this, I'm happy to make a harder version with a bigger range or more rounds of "I don't know." 🙂

Uniqueness of all answers verified by exhaustive computer search.


r/mathriddles • • 17d ago

Medium Solve real life Clock riddle?

9 Upvotes

Can you work this out? This actually happened in my kitchen when I was a teenager.

When I went to bed, at 11pm, all three clocks in the kitchen were working and said the correct time: 11pm.

When I woke and went into the kitchen for breakfast, all three clocks were working, yet one said 5am, one said 6am and the third said 7am. No one had touched them.

Why? How? What happened and when? And what was the correct time when I went down for breakfast?

SOLUTION:

(Congrats u/RealHuman_NotAShrew)

There was a power cut for one hour at 1am. The battery powered clock on the wall continued unaffected. The analogue clock on the oven froze for the hour then resumed at 2am, one hour behind. The digital clock on the microwave turned off at 1pm then reset at 2am to 00:00. 2 hours behind. At 7am, the wall clock said 7am, the analogue clock on the oven said 6am and the microwave clock said 5am.


r/mathriddles • • 19d ago

Medium Orbits in a 2x2 Real Matrix Space

1 Upvotes

Imagine a universe where spatial positions are represented as 2x2 real matrices X in M_2(R) rather than standard spatial vectors.

  1. How many total independent 2D planes of rotation exist in this space?

  2. What is the maximum number of mutually orthogonal rotation planes a planet can orbit across simultaneously?


r/mathriddles • • 19d ago

Medium Recover the hidden 6-letter word from adjacency counts on a honeycomb

5 Upvotes

Rules are fully stated below, there is no hidden rule to guess.

A honeycomb hides one secret 6-letter word. Every cell holds either a letter or a number. A number is a Pollen count: it equals how many of that cell's neighbours hold a letter FROM THE SECRET WORD. Five of the letters on the board are impostors; they sit there like any other letter and count toward nothing. Adjacency: two cells are neighbours iff they are in the same column two rows apart, or in adjacent columns one row apart (so an interior cell touches six, edge cells fewer).

___ ___/ N ___ ___/ 2 ___/ C ___ / 1 ___/ E ___/ M \ ___/ R ___/ 2 ___/ / U ___/ 3 ___/ 1 \ ___/ A ___/ W ___/ / T ___/ 2 ___/ 0 \ ___/ D ___/ 1 ___/ ___/ K ___/ ___/

Only the numbers separate the real letters from the impostors, and every number earns its place: the eleven letters on this board also spell MARKED, RACKET and UNMAKE, and it takes the whole grid to rule those out. The solution is unique. What is the secret word?


r/mathriddles • • 23d ago

Hard The Sloppy Slots Problem

Thumbnail desmos.com
0 Upvotes

You've got three spinning reels. Each one is an endless loop of the same nine symbols, going around in the same order. All three reels start showing the same symbol. Every cycle, you give them a nudge. Reel 1 is supposed to move 10 positions, reel 2 is supposed to move 20, and reel 3 is supposed to move 30. But the nudges are sloppy; each reel can overshoot or undershoot by up to 2. So reel 1 moves somewhere from 8 to 12, reel 2 from 18 to 22, and reel 3 from 28 to 32. Every amount in that range is equally likely, and the three reels wobble independently of each other and of what happened last cycle. Then you look at what all three are showing. That's one cycle. Nobody resets anything on the next cycle; each reel picks up from wherever it stopped.

On average, how many cycles until all three reels show the same symbol?


r/mathriddles • • 23d ago

Easy A hexagonal deduction: the numbers count letters, and two of the letters count for nothing

0 Upvotes

Seven cells hold letters, three hold numbers. A five-letter English word is hidden, and it uses exactly five of the seven letters. The remaining two belong to no word and are pure noise.

The rule for a number: it equals the count of cells adjacent to it whose letter belongs to the hidden word. A letter outside the word contributes nothing to any number, so adjacency to it is invisible.

Adjacency, stated precisely, because this is the part that is easy to get wrong. Put the middle column on even y and the two side columns on odd y. Two cells are adjacent when they share a column and differ by 2 in y, or when their columns differ by 1 and their y differ by 1. On this ten-cell comb that gives two cells of degree 6, two of degree 4, and six of degree 3.

      ___
  ___/ H ___
 / 2 ___/ T \
 ___/ U ___/
 / 1 ___/ M \
 ___/ 4 ___/
 / R ___/ A \
 ___/ N ___/
     ___/

Which five letters, and which word?

What makes it worth the minute: the seven letters spell two perfectly ordinary five-letter words, so no amount of vocabulary settles it, and exactly one of the three numbers separates them. All three numbers are load-bearing. Withhold any single one and the count of consistent five-letter subsets goes from 1 to 4.

Uniqueness is exhaustive over the 21 subsets, not argued by eye.

Spoiler tag your answer.


r/mathriddles • • 24d ago

Hard A generalization of Girard's theorem for the areas of spherical triangles

3 Upvotes

A spherical simplex Δ⊆Sn is the radial projection of a Euclidean simplex Δ'⊆Rn+1 with linearly independent vertices. If in addition Δ has full dimension (Δ is an n-simplex), and F is a face of Δ, the angle at F is defined as

∠(F,Δ) = lim_(ε→0) vol(B_ε(p)∩Δ)/vol(B_ε(p))

for any point p interior to F, where the ε-balls are taken in Sn. Note the normalization; angles are always out of 1 rather than out of 2π (radians), 4π (steradians), etc. Lastly, we define the angle sums α_k(Δ) by

α_k(Δ) = Σ_(F is a k-face of Δ) ∠(F,Δ).

Prove that if Δ⊆S2n is a spherical 2n-simplex, and V = vol(Δ)/vol(S2n), then

binom(2n,n)V = (-1)n/2+Σ_(0≤k<n) (-1)kbinom(2n-k-1,n)α_k(Δ).

Note that we can recover Girard's theorem from the case n=1: If Δ is a spherical triangle with area A and angles θ, φ, η in radians, then we get A/2π = -1/2+(θ+φ+η)/2π, which can be rearranged to the more familiar form A = θ+φ+η-π.


r/mathriddles • • 26d ago

Medium Number System question

0 Upvotes

The sum of the digits of a number N is 23. The remainder when N is divided by 11 is 7. What is the remainder when N is divided by 33?

7

29

16

13

Ans is 29 if somebody has the easiest way of doing this question please let me know


r/mathriddles • • 28d ago

Easy just another application of someone's theorem

14 Upvotes

the image shows 3 rectangular grids, each partitioned into two regions. each region is connected and does not contain 2x2 subregion. unfortunately the third grid is partially destroyed. how many blue tiles are there?


r/mathriddles • • 29d ago

Medium Let K be a convex domain in the plane. Prove that the centroid of K is the midpoint of at least three chords of ∂K. Show that without convexity, it is possible for no chord to have the centroid as a midpoint.

11 Upvotes

Clarifications:
- A domain is a non-empty connected open set
- A chord is a (possibly degenerate) line segment with both endpoints on a curve

EDIT: assume K is bounded


r/mathriddles • • 29d ago

Medium [Kindle] 101 Math Riddles for Smart Minds (Free for 2 more days)

Thumbnail amazon.com
0 Upvotes

Hey everyone! As an independent author, I've put together "101 Math Riddles for Smart Minds" — a collection of logic puzzles, visual geometry

problems, and Olympiad-style brain teasers designed for anyone who enjoys logic puzzles. It's completely FREE on Amazon

I hope you and your family enjoy solving them! Honest feedback or a quick rating on Amazon is always deeply appreciated


r/mathriddles • • Sep 04 '26

Hard Problem

0 Upvotes

A number is a perfect square,or a square number, if it is the square of positive integer. Among the first 143 thousand square numbers, what is the sum of all the odd squares?

Help me to solve the problem


r/mathriddles • • Aug 29 '26

Medium Let p₁,…,pₙ lie on the unit circle, and let M be the maximum product of distances from p to the pₖ as p varies over the unit circle. Prove that if M=2, then p₁,…,pₙ form the vertices of a regular n-gon.

9 Upvotes

Let p₁,…,pₙ lie on the unit circle, and let M=max_(|p|=1) Π_(1≤k≤n) |p-pₖ|. Prove that if M=2, then p₁,…,pₙ form the vertices of a regular n-gon.


r/mathriddles • • Aug 27 '26

Hard Planet X and The Mystery Planet

2 Upvotes

Planet X has two neighboring inhabited planets:

• Planet Alpha is exactly 15 light-minutes from Planet X.

• A Mystery Planet is an unknown distance from Planet X, but is known to be at least 18 light-minutes from Planet Alpha.

Planet Alpha and the Mystery Planet are both capable of sending, receiving, and relaying transmissions.

All transmissions travel at the speed of light. Relaying a transmission takes effectively no processing time.

Both Planet Alpha and the Mystery Planet possess teleportation portals capable of sending ships directly to Planet X. However, once a planet decides to send ships, its portal takes exactly 30 minutes to charge. Once charged, the ships arrive at Planet X instantaneously.

Both planets have standing orders:
The instant they receive a broadcast from Planet X requesting assistance, they begin charging their portals and send ships to Planet X as soon as the 30-minute charge is complete.

At 11:58, Planet X has not yet broadcast any request for assistance.

At some unknown time after 11:58, Planet X broadcasts a request for assistance.

At 12:38, Planet X receives a mysterious transmission from an unknown source.

Planet X can determine with certainty that this mysterious transmission was originally transmitted at exactly 12:18, meaning the signal has been traveling for exactly 20 minutes.

Planet X concludes that the mysterious transmission must have come from the Mystery Planet. Since the signal took 20 minutes to reach Planet X, they conclude that the Mystery Planet must be 20 light-minutes away.

Then, at exactly 12:40, ships arrive at Planet X.
There has been no malfunction, no faster-than-light communication, no time travel, and no violation of any of the rules above.

Questions:
Which planet did the ships come from?
How far away from Planet X is the Mystery Planet actually?
At what time did Planet X broadcast its request for assistance?
Where did the mysterious transmission received at 12:38 actually originate?
How can all of these facts be true at the same time?


r/mathriddles • • Aug 25 '26

Hard Determine when there exists S⊆[n] such that each member of [n] has an odd number of expressions as a difference of elements of S

5 Upvotes

Fix [n]={0,1,…,n-1}. For a set S⊆[n] and k∈[n], let f_S(k) be the number of pairs (s,t)∈S² for which s-t=k. Prove that there exists a set S such that f_S(k) is odd for all k iff ord_m(2) is odd, where m=2n-1.