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riddles >> what happened >> STUCK IN A BOX
(Message started by: Louise on Dec 2nd, 2002, 12:34am)

Title: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Louise on Dec 2nd, 2002, 12:34am

A man is stuck in a box. There are no doors, no windows, no openings of any kind. Inside with him is a round table and a mirror. How does he get out?


Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by Speaker on Dec 2nd, 2002, 2:08am
How about if he just stands up and lifts the box over his head and walks out.

This reminds me of a party game, in which a blanket is placed over an available rube who has been asked to sit on the floor. Then, the rules are stated that he (or she) must remove something to be able to come out. The person under the blanket then begins to remove articles of clothing, usually starting with a shoe or sock. This continues until they are left in their birthday suit. At which time the surounding co-conspirators announce that the only thing they needed to take off was the blanket itself.

Get it, they have to take off the blanket to get out from under the blanket.

Anyway, the title of this riddle is a really hard riddle, which makes me think that the hard part is thinking too hard.

Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by Eric Yeh on Dec 2nd, 2002, 11:17am
Speaker,

Did you actually get anyone to do that??  It sounds funny enough, but I just can't see how you would get anyone to actually play along without presenting at least the illusion that they cannot get out by just "removing" the blanket (e.g. by holding it down).  Otherwise it seems they would say, "this is stupid, let me out," and try to lift up the blanket, at which point by the "true" rules of the game, you would actually have to let them out.  No?

Best,
Eric

Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by towr on Dec 2nd, 2002, 12:53pm
I think the clue there is "get them drunk enough"
Which works for a lot of party games..

It's just a rule of the game I think.. And the point of any game is to win within the rules.. (which in this case is 'you have to remove something to get out from under the blanket')

Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by That Don Guy on Dec 2nd, 2002, 12:54pm

A man is stuck in a box. There are no doors, no windows, no openings of any kind. Inside with him is a round table and a mirror. How does he get out?


Not the greatest of "trick question" riddles, if you ask me...
Answer:

1.  The man looks into the mirror to see what he saw.

2.  The man takes the saw and cuts a hole in the box.

Were you expecting me to say:
2.  The man takes the saw, cuts the table in half, and then puts the two halves together to make a whole.
Well, sure, if you want to do it the long way...

In either case:
3.  The man gets out of the box through the hole.
(Answer ends here)

Or, there's this variation on something I heard on TV:

The man keeps running around and around inside the box until he's all tuckered out.  (A variation on a riddle on The Brady Bunch that asked how to get in to the box: "you keep running around and running around until you're all in"


-- Don

Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by James Fingas on Dec 3rd, 2002, 1:30pm
He just gets all the knights sitting at the table to break a big hole in the box, then walks out.

That was totally obvious...

Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by lukes new shoes on Dec 3rd, 2002, 5:14pm
i heard a more abstract version...

u are locked in a dungeon and the only thing in there with u is a table where u can make urself a cup of tea. how do u get out?

Title: Re: A REALLY HARD RIDDLE
Post by TimMann on Dec 4th, 2002, 12:31am
OK, I make myself a cup of tea. Then when the guard comes in to clear away the tea things, he'll take me back to the kitchen with him to wash me.

This is not a good solution unless I have a way to make myself a person again, though. I'd rather live out my life as a prisoner than as a teacup.

;D

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by william wu on Dec 8th, 2002, 3:46pm
Hmph. Very cute.

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Louise Poon on Dec 8th, 2002, 7:20pm
yeah, The answers "That Don Guy" gave were right.
What i would've said is :
 The man looks in the mirror and see what he saw,
 He takes the saw and cuts the table in half,
 Two halfs equal a whole,
 And he climbs out the hole.


Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Macduff472y on Dec 27th, 2002, 3:59pm
I heard a riddle very similar to this.
Here is the answer:
The man looked in the mirror and saw what he saw.
He took the saw and sawed the table in half.
Two halves make a whole.
The man put the hole in the box and
climbed out of it.
;D

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Munchkin on Jan 19th, 2003, 11:40pm
When i heard this riddle... it was told by someone who didn't quite get the point.. and the answer he offered was:

"He looked into the mirror and took out the saw. He then cut the table and crawled out"

needless to say... someone told him the ACTUAL answer and he tried to justify it... oh dear.

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by GodOfLight on Jan 18th, 2004, 10:21pm
If provided and only provided "A man is stuck in a box. There are no doors, no windows, no openings of any kind."  Then there wouldn't be any light since there is no openings of any kind.

Then, by what mean, you can look yourself in the mirror??

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on Jan 19th, 2004, 7:40am
If his name is Jack he won't need a saw.

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by matt on Apr 10th, 2004, 12:56am
come on guys, think outside the BOX ;)

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by bobcat on May 5th, 2004, 8:36pm
If it's too dark too see in the mirror, he could just hit himself on the head until it became sore and then, well, you know the rest...

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by SMacKs on May 8th, 2004, 10:16am
I think bobcat's idea is the best one!

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Three Hands on May 8th, 2004, 11:28am
However, it makes the mirror redundant. He can instead hit his head on the table until it becomes sore - or some other part of himself of course ::)

Maybe if he hit the table hard enough to break it in half, it would count as good as having been sawn in half...

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by grimbal on May 8th, 2004, 3:32pm

on 01/18/04 at 22:21:32, GodOfLight wrote:
If provided and only provided "A man is stuck in a box. There are no doors, no windows, no openings of any kind."  Then there wouldn't be any light since there is no openings of any kind.

Then, by what mean, you can look yourself in the mirror??

You can if you are bright enough.  ;D

And with a little reflexion, you won't even need the mirror.

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Three Hands on May 9th, 2004, 4:07am

on 01/18/04 at 22:21:32, GodOfLight wrote:
If provided and only provided "A man is stuck in a box. There are no doors, no windows, no openings of any kind."  Then there wouldn't be any light since there is no openings of any kind.

Then, by what mean, you can look yourself in the mirror??


Is it just me, or was the answer just that the man looked in the mirror to "see what he saw". Hence, the man doesn't actually need to see himself in the mirror. Indeed, if there's no light available, then what the man saw would just be pitch black - an absence of light reflected off the mirror - but still would presumably constitute "seeing what he saw" well enough to count.

More to the point, however, is how the man knows that he has all these things and nothing else in the box with him, and also be able to get the saw having made it in the first place. Methinks it might take the man longer than we might initially have thought, unless, as grimbal suggests, he is bright enough to be a light source

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by Sir Col on Feb 10th, 2005, 2:18pm
Due to the absence of light...

We might assume that the side of the box in front of him is the same as the box behind him. However, if he uses the mirror to look at the side of the box behind him, then he would NOT see an image of the side of the box in front of him. By a perverse misuse of the law of negation, as the side in front of him is solid, the side behind him is not solid.

OR

He could use mind over matter by just looking into the mirror and declaring to himself, "As the mirror 'sees' what is inside the box and I cannot be seen in the reflection, I must not be inside the box."

OR

He could jump up and down on the table until the legs break off. After all, being legless means he would be completely out of it. ;)

Title: Re: STUCK IN A BOX
Post by jenniegurl on Jun 26th, 2005, 4:09pm
ahh , i heard all these puns before.

ok, what do they usually make boxes out of today...cardboard.
he could just punch a hole thru it
or if he's really weak, just spit until the carboard gets damp and then kick through it
or rip apart the seems, you know

and if it's not cardboard...he could start a BOX SOCIAL and invite all his friends so they'd come and obviously find a way to get in so there's your entrance/exit.

since there's no light in the whole thing....i dont see how anything's really possibly lol

ok, assuming it's on earth....he could wait and wait (and not die) until the universe gets really huge and starts collapsing on itself, if he has any luck the earth will start spinning really fast and he could just jump really high and while he's in the air the box would move and if he stayed in the same place in the air he could collide against the wall of the box perhaps with enough power to break it.

he could try and try and eventually give up and call himself a wussy and a chicken for not like, bashing his head against the wall or something. then he'd go 'bawk bawk bawk' and eventually break the box spell. lol



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