Puzzles and Riddles!

[Professor Layton]

This is just a thread for the weekly puzzles and riddles I've been doing in the chat box. As to not spoil it for other people who want to try it, put your answer in a spoiler thingy. I'll upload the puzzles every Wednesday, whilst riddles I will try to post each day. I will post if I know that I will not be able to put any up for a time. And if you ever get stumped on these, just remember,

Every puzzle has an answer.
[float=right]- Professor Layton[/float]

[Miranda Frost]

YEESS PLEEASEEE quee:

[Professor Layton]

Time for the riddle of the day!

Q: Take away my first letter, and I still sound the same. Take away my last letter, I still sound the same. Even take away my letter in the middle, I will still sound the same. I am a five letter word. What am I?

[Victor Wolfe]

[spoiler]Empty?[/spoiler]

[Omni]

ooooo

Can I use a hint coin?

[Professor Layton]

Can I use a hint coin?

This is a riddle, not a puzzle. If you can find or summon a hint coin however, sure you can use it for the puzzles!

[Professor Layton]

Riddle time!

You live in a place where six months of the year is mild summer and during the other six months the mercury goes drastically down! You own a lake where there is a small island. You want to build a house over there and need to get some materials across there. You have no boat, plane or anything which you can use to transport them to the island. How will you solve the problem?

[Dark Link]

[spoiler]Cross the lake when it's frozen?[/spoiler]

[Ikit Claw]

What kind of materials are you using to build this house?

[Professor Layton]

Dark Link, you are correct, although remember to put the answer in a spoiler tag so others can try if they want to. Good job!
By the way, Victor got the last one correct. I forgot to post he got it.

[Dark Link]

My apologies. I've edited my post accordingly.

[Professor Layton]

A riddle and puzzle today!
RIDDLE:
You have been given the task of transporting 3,000 apples 1,000 miles from Appleland to Bananaville. Your truck can carry 1,000 apples at a time. Every time you travel a mile towards Bananaville you must pay a tax of 1 apple, but you pay nothing when going in the other direction (towards Appleland).

What is the highest number of apples you can get to Bananaville?

PUZZLE: (Note, you cannot rotate the image as you can in the game itself, however, the puzzle is still solvable.

There's no way to lower the bridge and get across without inserting the crank in the right slot!
Choose the slot that fits the crank shown below.

[Harry Dresden]

Dear lord, that's some hefty taxation.

[spoiler]Let's see... your truck carries 1000 apples, the trip is 1000 miles. One might be able to say 0 and call it a day... but that's not the highest number of apples you can get to Bananaville. Without going into things like tax evasion, let's say you have a safe place to store the apples, 500 miles into the trip. Take a full load there, and store the remaining 500 apples. Now, when you go back and refill, pick up the 500 apples you've stored along the way. That gets 500 apples to Bananaville. Since there are only 1000 left, you can't make another trip without delving into the aforementioned realm of tax evasion. Which might get you arrested. Not interested in facing Banana Justice today, no sir.[/spoiler]

[Victor Wolfe]

[spoiler]500 as you can carry 1000 half way, drop of the 500, go back and pick up another thousand, pick up the 500 at the half way point and then go to the town dropping of 500[/spoiler]

puzzle :[spoiler]1[/spoiler]

[Dark Link]

This is a bit of a cheeky answer to the riddle, but given the answers Harry and Victor provided, I'll go with it anyway.

[spoiler]None, because you'd spend the entire load just paying the tax along the way.[/spoiler]

[Professor Layton]

Victor, you got the puzzle correct, but not the riddle. Harry, that's also not correct. There's a higher number! Dark Link, not correct at all!

[Professor Layton]

HINT: (to yesterday's riddle)
Step one: First you want to make 3 trips of 1,000 apples 333 miles. You will be left with 2,001 apples and 667 miles to go.

[Victor Wolfe]

[spoiler]833[/spoiler]

[Professor Layton]

Victor is correct!
[spoiler]Answer: 833 apples.

Step one: First you want to make 3 trips of 1,000 apples 333 miles. You will be left with 2,001 apples and 667 miles to go.
Step two: Next you want to take 2 trips of 1,000 apples 500 miles. You will be left with 1,000 apples and 167 miles to go (you have to leave an apple behind).
Step three: Finally, you travel the last 167 miles with one load of 1,000 apples and are left with 833 apples in Bananaville.[/spoiler]

[Professor Layton]

Now then, today's riddle!

Question: You have two coconuts and you want to find out how high they can be dropped from a 100 story building before they break. But you only have $1.40 and the elevator costs a dime each time you ride it up (it's free for rides down).

How can you drop the coconuts to guarantee you will find the lowest floor they will break at, while starting and ending at floor 1?

Note: They break when dropped from the same height and they don't weaken from getting dropped.