A woodworker has a single straight beam of timber 10 meters long. He wants to cut it into 10 equal 1-meter segments. How many straight cuts must he make?
9 cuts
Each cut divides one piece into two. Making 9 cuts in a single line produces 10 individual pieces.
About this riddle
Logic riddles give you a few facts and ask what must be true. List what you know, cross out what cannot be, and see what is left.
Difficulty: Easy. More like this: Logic riddles with answers or try Einstein's Logic Grid for a different kind of puzzle.
More logic riddles
Two trains start moving toward each other at the exact same time from tracks 200 miles apart. Train A travels at 40 mph, and Train B travels at 60 mph. At the same instant Train A starts, a remarkably fast housefly on Train A's front windshield begins flying toward Train B at 80 mph. When the fly hits Train B's windshield, it instantly turns around and flies back toward Train A at 80 mph, continuing this back-and-forth until the two trains collide. What is the total distance the fly traveled?
Three boxes are labeled 'Apples', 'Oranges', and 'Apples and Oranges', but all three labels are currently placed incorrectly on the wrong boxes. You are allowed to draw exactly one piece of fruit from only one box to fix all the labels. Which box do you choose?
If you paint a solid wooden cube completely blue, and then cut it into 27 smaller, identical cubes, how many of those smaller cubes will have blue paint on exactly two of their faces?
Three boxes of chocolates are placed on a table. One contains milk chocolate, one contains dark chocolate, and one contains a mix of both. Every box is mislabeled. You pull one piece from the 'Mixed' box and it is dark chocolate. What is inside the box labeled 'Milk'?
If two painters can paint two rooms in two hours, how many painters are needed to paint eighteen rooms in eighteen hours?
An ancient vault requires a four-digit numerical code. - The sum of all four digits is 10. - The first digit is twice the third digit. - The second digit is zero. - The last digit is odd and greater than 5. What is the four-digit code?