Riddle time!

[RanVor]

Just remembered this really cool riddle and I figured I'll post it here for convenience. You can post your own riddles here, however, once there's more than one riddle, it might be a good idea to quote it while answering, to prevent confusion regarding which riddle is being answered.

My riddle is as follows:

Let's suppose you have been diagnosed with a deadly illness and only have a few months left to live. You're offered a chance to participate in an experimental treatment that will save your life. You're given two jars, each containing a hundred pills. Both kinds of pills look, smell and taste exactly the same - there's no way to tell the difference. You have to take two pills from each jar every day until you run out of both, after which you will be cured. However, if you mix it up, you die. You do as you're told until, two days before the end of your treatment, you accidentally knock over both jars and the pills get mixed up. What do you do to complete your treatment and not die?

[Alkia]

ooh, I've heard one like this before! I've never heard a definite correct answer, but my answer is this: take all the pills, grind them up, and mix the powder as well as possible. Then, either eat the powder or put it in water to make a paste and mix it more.

[RanVor]

ooh, I've heard one like this before! I've never heard a definite correct answer, but my answer is this: take all the pills, grind them up, and mix the powder as well as possible. Then, either eat the powder or put it in water to make a paste and mix it more.

There's a simpler way.

[thegreyarea]

Just remembered this really cool riddle and I figured I'll post it here for convenience...

...What do you do to complete your treatment and not die?

Great idea Ran!

I know this is not the right answer, but I'd take those 8 pills (2 days left x 2 jars x 2 pills) and wait until midnight. Then I'll took all them together, even risking an overdose.

(Presuming there's no way to contact those guys that were so smart to devise a treatment for a deadly disease but not smart enough to make the damn pills in different colours!)

[Grade E cat]

Just remembered this really cool riddle and I figured I'll post it here for convenience. You can post your own riddles here, however, once there's more than one riddle, it might be a good idea to quote it while answering, to prevent confusion regarding which riddle is being answered.

My riddle is as follows:

Let's suppose you have been diagnosed with a deadly illness and only have a few months left to live. You're offered a chance to participate in an experimental treatment that will save your life. You're given two jars, each containing a hundred pills. Both kinds of pills look, smell and taste exactly the same - there's no way to tell the difference. You have to take two pills from each jar every day until you run out of both, after which you will be cured. However, if you mix it up, you die. You do as you're told until, two days before the end of your treatment, you accidentally knock over both jars and the pills get mixed up. What do you do to complete your treatment and not die?

Are we supposed to assume the pills were actually spilled out of their original bottles or not?

[JoB]

You have to take two pills from each jar every day until you run out of both

I shall assume that that means either a) to take 2 "left jar" + 2 "right jar" = 4 at one time every day, or b) 1+1 at one time ("morning") and 1+1 at another ("evening"), not that you have to take the two sorts at different times of the day (e.g., 2+0 in the morning and 0+2 in the evening).

Spoiler: in that case ... • show

Take your eight remaining pills and a) two / b) four new containers. Break every pill in equal parts, putting one part of it in every container. Gobble down the content of one container at every pill-taking time.

PSA: In the real world, there are pills that have some inner structure (resorption-delaying coatings, etc. etc.) and deteriorate when you break them into pieces. Don't do that with your pills unless the instructions you got say it's OK, or at the very least the pills have grooves to help breaking them. Be sure to break them at the grooves, too.

[RanVor]

I shall assume that that means either a) to take 2 "left jar" + 2 "right jar" = 4 at one time every day, or b) 1+1 at one time ("morning") and 1+1 at another ("evening"), not that you have to take the two sorts at different times of the day (e.g., 2+0 in the morning and 0+2 in the evening).

Spoiler: in that case ... • show

Take your eight remaining pills and a) two / b) four new containers. Break every pill in equal parts, putting one part of it in every container. Gobble down the content of one container at every pill-taking time.

PSA: In the real world, there are pills that have some inner structure (resorption-delaying coatings, etc. etc.) and deteriorate when you break them into pieces. Don't do that with your pills unless the instructions you got say it's OK, or at the very least the pills have grooves to help breaking them. Be sure to break them at the grooves, too.

Ladies and gentleman, we have the correct answer. Congratulations!

[thegreyarea]

Ladies and gentleman, we have the correct answer. Congratulations!

Ok, but I still want to talk with those guys that made the pills-that-kill-you-if-mixed with the same colour!

But I liked this little play, so here's a new one. (Though some may find it to easy):

- What is seen in the middle of March and April that can’t be seen at the beginning or end of either month?

[Róisín]

The letter ‘r’?

[thegreyarea]

The letter ‘r’?

I said that some would find it too easy... Yes, we have a winner!

Now I'll be waiting for the next one :-)

[JoB]

Ok, but I still want to talk with those guys that made the pills-that-kill-you-if-mixed with the same colour!

Now that's a "Holier than thou" attitude if I've ever seen one!

- What is seen in the middle of March and April that can’t be seen at the beginning or end of either month?

Since I think that Róisín nailed that one, lemme try to come up with a new one ... hehe, I'll shamelessly steal/adapt something I heard on the radio lately ...

I'm hairy and I give milk, yet I'm not a mammal.
I cannot move away from my home region, and yet I appear near people pretty much all over the world.
Said people are usually delighted to see me - and then grab various blunt instruments to use on me.
What am I?

[RanVor]

I'm hairy and I give milk, yet I'm not a mammal.
I cannot move away from my home region, and yet I appear near people pretty much all over the world.
Said people are usually delighted to see me - and then grab various blunt instruments to use on me.
What am I?

A coconut?

[Róisín]

Here is one of mine. I drew on two sources of inspiration for this: a quote from John Muir (yes John Muir as in founding of National Parks) talking about seasonal things: ‘Each in its turn as the round Earth rolls’, and the Anglo-Saxon Riddle Poems, which are well worth a read, both for themselves and because they inspired Tolkien’s riddle game in ‘The Hobbit’. A warning: several of these sound as if the answers should be something quite risqué, even if they are not, and some others actually do have a risqué answer.

The answer to mine is one of the classic answers. Some of you may have seen it already in other contexts.

What spills through the hands like sand or water
Spills through the mind from grief to laughter
Dances a beat and the next beat after?

What is deeper than Death’s dark river,
Still as a shallow where bright leaves shiver
Gone every instant yet lives forever?

What can snuff out a star in the dark alone?
Crush a mountain to dust and that dust to a stone
And that stone in its turn into dust again?

What is all false and yet most true?
Old forever yet always new?

What is the water the soul swims through?

[Keep Looking]

With your clue of 'classic answers', I'm going to guess that it's time.

Also, that is a beautifully written riddle.

[Róisín]

You are correct!