Most of us learn that taking something away makes what remains smaller. Remove a slice from a cake and there is less cake. Take a book off a shelf and the stack gets shorter. That is why this old riddle can make you stop and think: The more you take away from me, the bigger I become. What am I?
The key is to forget about an ordinary object that grows by collecting more material. Instead, think about a space that is defined by what is missing. Every time you remove more material from around that space, it expands.
Take a closer look
Imagine digging in the garden with a shovel. The first scoop of earth creates a small empty space. Scoop out more soil and that space gets wider or deeper. The soil pile grows too, but that is not what the riddle is asking about. It is the emptiness left behind that changes in the surprising way.
Riddles like this are enjoyable because they encourage a different perspective. A familiar verb such as take away leads us toward subtraction, but here subtraction makes the answer physically larger.
The answer
The answer is a hole. The more earth or other material you take out of it, the larger the hole becomes. The surprise is that you are enlarging an empty space, not adding anything to an object.
What did you think when you first saw this picture? Share your thoughts with friends and family.
