Using this Site

Welcome to Steve Miller’s Math Riddles web page. What follows is a brief explanation of how to take advantage of the features of this site. For more information on using riddles for classroom enrichment, visit Riddles in Schools or check out the discussions in the Blog.  If you want a response to your comments, however, you must leave a valid email address. Failure to leave a valid email address may result in your post being ignored. The reason is all posts are moderated to make sure nothing is posted that will give away the solution to someone who does not wish to see it.

General

You can access all riddles from the right navigation panel present on every page. Each riddle is classified according to Difficulty and Topic, with some riddles assigned to multiple topics.

Hints

Some riddles have hints. These hints are not immediately visible when you arrive at the riddle’s page in order to provide you with an opportunity to work toward a solution on your own. If you’d like to see the hint, simply click on Hint 1 (or whichever number hint you’d like to see).

Solutions

While we have provided some immediately accessible hints, we don’t want the solutions to be too readily available in order to encourage you to fully think through a riddle and attack the problem from multiple angles. If you’d like to request a solution, contact Professor Miller (Steven.Miller.MC.96 AT aya.yale.edu). He will email you the solution 24 hours after receiving your request.

Comments

Discussion about how to go about solving a riddle is encouraged in each riddle’s Comments section. Although the form for submitting comments asks for an email address and website, these fields are not required. Please be considerate of other site visitors and don’t simply post solutions. However, in the event that other visitors have discussed solutions in the comments, these posts aren’t initially visible on the riddle’s page. To view comments, click on the “Comments” header or the “View comments” button.

Blog

We encourage you to participate in Blog discussion. Feel free to leave comments anywhere, especially in the discussion about Using Riddles in Schools, as well as suggesting a new topic in the Topic Suggestions post.

Submitting Riddles and Solutions

Not only do we encourage discussion about the riddles already on the site, but we’d appreciate contributions to the site’s content. If you have a riddle that you would like added, email it to Professor Miller (Steven.Miller.MC.96 AT aya.yale.edu). If you have a nicely written up solution to one of our existing riddles or to your new submission, email it to Professor Miller as well.

Image Source Citations

“A Bridge,” uploaded to flickr by bensonkua
“American Coins,” uploaded to flickr by uhuru1701
“Apples and oranges,” uploaded to flickr by post406
“British Airways 777 G-YMMA,” uploaded to flickr by caribb
brain icon, http://www.supershareware.com/info/math-game—puzzle-.html
Math_2.png, uploaded to Wikimedia by Riba
Playing cards modified.jpg, uploaded to Wikimedia by Christian Gidlöf