Ah, I see! These riddles like “How many eggs are in the picture? Only geniuses know the right answer…” are an absolute classic on social media (Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram).

Even though we don’t have a specific photo in front of us, these optical illusions almost always work on the same principle. Let’s find out what this “trick for geniuses” consists of and what the most common correct answers are.

The 3 most common variations of this riddle:

Pyramid in a box (3D optical illusion)

The most common version shows a plate or box in which eggs are stacked in several layers, forming a pyramid.

The trick: The human eye can only see the eggs on top and at the edges. People often only count the visible eggs.

A trick for geniuses: Use your spatial reasoning skills and count the eggs you can’t see. They form an invisible base for the eggs above. If there’s one egg in the top layer, there must be four below it, and nine below that. So, there are a total of 14 eggs in the pyramid, even though you can only see a few.

Transparent or mirrored box

The image shows a glass container or a box with a mirrored bottom and mirrored sides, containing several eggs.

The trick: Reflections create the illusion that there are twice or four times as many things in the box.

A trick for geniuses: Ignore the reflections in the background and focus only on the real objects in the foreground.

Linguistic trap (Mathematical puzzle in the text)

Sometimes the image is just bait, and the solution lies in the text. Example: “I have 6 eggs. I broke 2, boiled 2, and ate 2. How many do I have left?”

The catch: The brain tends to automatically subtract numbers (6 € – 2 – 2 – 2 = 0 €).

The “ingenious” trick: Read carefully. The 6 eggs at the beginning represent the total number. The 2 broken eggs were boiled and eaten. So, 4 eggs remain (the ones that were left untouched).

Why are people arguing about this so much online?

These posts are intended as “clickbait” (a lure for comments). The author deliberately chooses an image that is ambiguous, blurry, or cropped.

The point is: There’s no universally valid number. The goal is to get people discussing it in the comments (some say 16, others 20, and still others 30). The more comments a post has, the further the social network’s algorithm spreads it.

Which of these possibilities first came to mind – the pyramid scheme or the text trick?