This teaser is guaranteed to have you bewildered.
Fans of a good head-scratcher will know that puzzles and brainteasers are excellent for enhancing your brain’s abilities and strengthening neuronal connections. Not only can they help stave off conditions like dementia, but also offer a mood lift as solving one brings about a dopamine rush.
However, this particular brainteaser has left many feeling more irate than elated as the solution eludes them. The challenge at hand appears deceptively straightforward, yet reaching the correct conclusion is anything but simple and it’s sparked debate across the internet as people hotly contest what the right answer is.
In a viral TikTok video, two ladies named Caitlin and Leah posed the puzzler. Caitlin was seen executing a sequence of gestures: clap, swirl hands, clap again, another hand twirl, a third clap, followed by a click. Post-performance, she asked Leah: “How many horses jumped over the fence?”
She was visibly perplexed by her partner’s query, admitting she had “absolutely no idea,” which led to a second demonstration from Caitlin, this time altering the hand actions. Before the final set of claps, she added two pats to her head and omitted the clicking. She repeated her question: “How many?”
Leah, now with seeming assurance, declared: “Eight, because you clapped eight times.”
However, Caitlin was adamant the correct answer was two and advised her partner to “concentrate” as she demonstrated the riddle once more. On her third attempt, she clapped, rotated her hands, and then tapped her head, before asking: “How many this time?”
Leah was under the impression that it would be two since Caitlin had tapped her head twice, but she was corrected and told the right number was actually four. After several more failed tries and growing confusion, Leah threw in the towel, spurring viewers of the video to heatedly debate the ‘true’ solution.
The puzzle’s solution is surprisingly straightforward. Caitlin’s gestures are irrelevant to the answers; what she vocalises afterwards counts. When she inquired, “How many?”, the answer was two. But when she said: “How many this time?”, the number was four, indicating the correct answer corresponds to the number of words she utters.
One commenter pointed out: “It’s how many words she says after doing all the hand movements. For example, ‘how many’ would be 2, and ‘how many jumped over the fence’ would be 6.” Echoing the sentiment, another weighed in: “It’s the amount of words she says after the actions.”