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Logic riddles
A rooster lays an egg on the peak of a barn roof. Which way does the egg roll?
A trick question that sounds like a physics problem. You are invited to think about slopes and gravity while the first word is quietly impossible.
A rooster lays an egg on the peak of a barn roof. Which way does the egg roll?
Hint: Who lays eggs?
Reveal the answer
It doesn’t, roosters don’t lay eggs
Only hens lay eggs. A rooster cannot.
How to solve it (spoilers)
How to think about it
- The question asks which way the egg rolls, which gets you thinking about the pitch of the roof and the wind.
- Before calculating, check the setup. Who is laying the egg?
- A rooster is a male chicken. Roosters do not lay eggs; hens do.
- There is no egg, so nothing rolls anywhere.
Why “it doesn’t, roosters don’t lay eggs” is the answer
Roosters are male and cannot lay eggs, so the scene described in the riddle can never happen and the question about direction has no answer. The riddle hides the impossibility in the very first noun and then distracts you with a geometry problem. It is a close cousin of the electric train with no smoke.
Common wrong answers
- Down the steeper side. A reasonable physics answer, but there is no egg to roll.
- It stays balanced. An egg on a peak would probably roll, but again, a rooster never laid one.
Related riddles
- An electric train is heading south. Which way is its smoke blowing?
- Which is correct: “the yolk of the egg are white” or “the yolk of the egg is white”?
- What has to be broken before you can use it?
- The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
- What goes up but never comes down?
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