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What am I? riddles
What invention lets you look right through a wall?
An invention riddle that sounds like science fiction. Seeing through a wall seems impossible until you notice that most walls already have the answer built in.
What invention lets you look right through a wall?
Hint: Most rooms have one.
Reveal the answer
A window
A window is the see-through part of a wall.
How to solve it (spoilers)
How to think about it
- Forget x-ray machines. The riddle says “invention”, which can mean something very old and ordinary.
- Ask how people in any house see what is happening outside without opening a door.
- A hole in the wall covered with glass lets light and your gaze pass through.
- A window is the invention that lets you look right through a wall.
Why “a window” is the answer
A window is an opening in a wall filled with glass, so looking through it is literally looking through the wall. The riddle gets its surprise from the word “invention”, which makes you expect high technology instead of something every room has. Glass windows go back to Roman times, so the invention is older than it sounds.
Common wrong answers
- An x-ray machine. X-rays see through bodies and luggage, but they are not what lets you look through the wall of your house.
- A camera. A camera on the other side of a wall shows you a picture, but you are not looking through the wall.
Related riddles
- What goes through cities and fields but never moves?
- What has keys but no locks, space but no room, and lets you enter but never go inside?
- What can you hold in your left hand but never in your right hand?
- What can pass through glass without breaking it?
- What has keys but can’t open a single lock?
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