Then to the riddle of the day that is offered by National Geographic, but the natural giant laid the brain teaser that can be seen here, for viewers in the American TV show Brain Games. It is remarkable to say that primary school children won an overwhelming victory over adults, but here you can see the drawing that put everything on the other end.
The question is: In which direction is the school bus driving?
According to the TV show, over 80% of children under the age of ten had no problem answering the question, using common sense and simple logic. The riddle, however, was difficult for many adults, but to solve the riddle, you need to keep the following in mind:
- Where’s the door? Is the school bus cut out of some science fiction novel, where a vehicle radiates the passengers into the car? The logical answer is of course that the door is on the other side of the car…
- Now keep in mind which side of the street the school bus is driving. Just like in old America, people drive in the right lane, so we can rightly assume that the school bus is in the right lane. It only remains to locate the school bus driver, but we have to assume one, because the school bus does not drive itself. Since the school bus is probably in the right lane, it is most likely that the school bus driver is on the left side of the car.
- Next, let’s assume that the school bus is in normal proportions and that the driver is located in the front of the car (but not in the middle of it, which would be very unnatural). Since the driver is on the left, in the front of the car, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the car is heading to the left.
Of course, one can play with the results and point out that the left-wing traffic is prevalent in the UK and a few other countries and then, if the situation turned out differently, of course. As a result, the school bus was heading to the right. You could even take the speculation even further and point out that the car goes in both directions, expands like the universe and that goes to infinity… (which is highly unlikely).
That said (and the riddle is now solved) try to apply the following arguments and solve the riddle in less than a second, just as most children under the age of ten would do.
The lesson outlined above is that children are much more natural than adults to follow visual guidelines and draw direct conclusions when they are given a slight hint. Adults, on the other hand, include visual cues and other factors into the equation before reaching a final conclusion, which means that adults dive deeper into the equations and take longer to reach the conclusion than children.
