2 February 2012

3 more from Professor Layton

It's been a while since I did some Professor Layton puzzles here, so why not post a few more? Below are the puzzles and the answers, but to make it a bit more fun, I've "hidden" the answers :) Don't worry, they are there, you just need to highlight the text if you want to know the answer. Good luck!

Puzzle 1: Two men are moving boxes from the first floor to the third. The larger man can carry two boxes at a time, and it takes him one minute to get to the third floor. The smaller man cancarry only one box at a time, but it takes himm just 30 seconds to make it to the third floor. For both men, the return trip to the first floor is the same as the trip up. If there were seven boxes total, how many minutes would it take the men to get all the boxes to the third floor?

Solution (highlight to see text): The question didn't mention the men returning to the first floor. All it mentioned is the amount of minutes it would take for them carry all of the boxes. For the larger man, it would take two minutes for a round with two boxes, but for the same amount of time, the smaller man would have two boxes on the third floor. So for two minutes, there will be four boxes. With the three boxes left, both men can carry them, adding a minute. Therefore, the answer is "3".



Puzzle 2:  Even though we're constantly passing through time, sometimes it can be difficult to think about the way time flows. If yesterday's day after tomorrow is Sunday, what day is tomorrow's day before yesterday?

Solution (highlight to see text): The answer is Friday. If yesterday's day after tomorrow is on a Sunday, then that means today would have been Saturday. Therefore,Sunday's day before yesterday would have been Friday. 



Puzzle 3:  There are 15 cookies to share amongst a large group. The first person eats one cookie then passes two equal portions of the leftover cookies to two other people. They both eat a cookie then each pass two equal portions of their remaining cookies to two other people, and so on until all of the cookies are gone.

It takes one minute to eat a cookie. Ignoring the time it takes to pass them, what's the shortest amount of time it could take for all of the cookies to be eaten.




Solution (highlight to see text):  It would take 4 minutes to eat all of the cookies.   If you read the question, one person passes two equally portions to two people. They eat one of them, and EACH of them passes to two people. If you imaging a number multiply by 2, then multiply by 2, and so on, you get what I mean.  In minute 1, 1 person eats a cookie. In minute 2, 2 people eats one. In minute 3, it's 4 eats one. And in minute 4, 8 people eats one. If you add them all, you will have 15 people eating one cookie

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