Math puzzles solved: Test your skills with these 6 riddles!

Mathematics is a fascinating subject that can challenge even the most experienced and skilled problem solvers. Math puzzles in particular are a type of problem that piques the interest and curiosity of many people, as well as stimulating logical thinking and creativity.

In this text, we're going to explore five challenging math riddles that will test readers' skills and solve intriguing math mysteries. From classic problems to modern puzzles, these riddles will test your analytical thinking and challenge you to come up with creative and surprising solutions.

Math Challenges

1. Mary is twice the age of John. If the sum of their ages equals 36 years, how old are Mary and John?
2. Frederick has 7 daughters. Each of them has a brother. How many children does Frederick have?
3. I am a three digit number. My tens digit is five more than my ones digit. My hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit. What number am I?
4. Arrange an equation using four number 9s such that the result is 100.

Answers

1. Maria is 24 years old and João is 12 years old. Let x be John's age, then Mary's age is 2x. The equation becomes x + 2x = 36, resulting in 3x = 36 and x = 12.

2. If each of Frederick's seven daughters has a brother, it means that this brother is shared by all of them. So Frederick has eight children in total: seven daughters and one son.

3. The correct answer to the riddle in question is 194. To find this number, we can use the same equations that I explained earlier:

d – u = 5 (where “d” is the tens digit and “u” is the ones digit)
c = d – 8 (where “c” is the hundreds digit)

We can use the first equation to substitute “d” in terms of “u”:

d = u + 5

Now, we can substitute this expression into the second equation to find “c” in terms of “u”:

c = (u + 5) – 8
c = u – 3

So we have that the three-digit number can be written as “cdu”, i.e. “194”.

4. You can use four number 9s and math operations to create an equation that equals 100. One of the ways to do this is:

(99 – (9/9)) = 100

Here, we have:

99 as the first two 9s;
9/9, which equals 1, using the third and fourth 9s;

Then the equation becomes:

99 – 1 = 100