Well its Sunday again, so time for another lazy post! As promised here are a few puzzles from the Professor Layton and the Curious Village Nintendo DS game. Keep in mind that I can only post the text oriented puzzles, but the game is chalk full of graphical puzzles as well. Enjoy!
By the way, if anyone went to the Saint-Patrick’s day parade today, drop a comment and let me know how it was! We stayed home and took care of our little shamrock 
But next year, we’ll be there getting our green on!!!
How Many Are Left?
Ten candles stand burning in a dining room. A strong breeze blows in through an open window and extinguishes two of them. Checking back in on the candles later, you see that one more candle has gone out. To make sure no more flames go out, you shut the window. Assuming the wind doesn’t extinguish any more candles, how many candles do you have left in the end?
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Light which one?
You have only one match left.
You want to light the room with an oil lamp, start a fire to warm the room, and heat your bathwater.
In order to complete all of the above actions, which of these should you light first?
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The sound of silence
Which of these words doesn’t make the sound of silence?
Note
Rhythm
Rest
Treble
Chord
Scale
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Ferris Wheel Riddle
There are 10 two-seater cars attached to the fair’s Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel turns so that one car rotates through the exit platform every minute.
The wheel began operation at 10 in the morning and shut down 30 minutes later. What’s the maximum number of people that could have taken a ride on the wheel in that time period?
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And now for a brain buster!!!
Finish the Equation
Complete the equation by inserting the four numbers into the correct slots, noted as _ .
( _ - _ / _ ) x _ = 10
Numbers to place: 3, 4, 7 and 8.
Good luck and have fun!
Here’s my guess at some of the answers. Don’t read any further if you don’t want it know!!!
Candles: It depends on what is meant by “in the end”. When he closes the window? 10. When the candles have finished burning themselves out? 3.
Light which one first: The match.
Sound of silence: Not too familiar with musical terminology, but I’m going to guess “all of them except Rest”
Ferris Wheel: Depends how long a ride is. 1 turn? Then I would guess 58 people.
Not sure about the equation one yet - back to work
1/ I agree with Aaron
2/ Aaron is so good
3/ I would say note or Chord.
4/ 42
5/ I think we cannot complete this equation by inserting all of these numbers. Indeed, 10 > 0 so (_-_) > 0 since the other multipliers will be > 0
so we have the following possibilities:
(7-4)/8*3=9/8
(8-4)/7*3=12/7
(8-7)/4*3=3/4
(7-3)/8*4=2
(8-3)/8*4=20/8
(8-7)/3*4=4/3
(4-3)/8*7=7/8
(8-3)/4*7=35/4
(8-4)/3*7=28/3
(7-3)/4*8=8
(7-4)/3*8=9
(4-3)/7*8=8/7
I don’t see any cases I would have missed and none of the ones I calculated is equal to 10…
Aaron, the candles riddle is a little ambiguous, but the game does this on purpose as to make you lose points, so careful reading is required 95% of the time. Having said that, closing the window in no way indicates its the ‘end’.
AugustClo, Aaron is good, but so are you: good job on the Ferris Wheel riddle! …
The equation riddle, I assure you, can be completed correctly, and the answer is among the many possible combinations that you have missed!
Is there any trick for the equation (for example, can we use -3 instead of 3, twice the same number, etc.. )? Because with 4 numbers, you have 4!=24 possible permutations and the 12 that I did not write down are negative number so not equal to 10.
You are challenging me on my domain… I am really curious to see the answer for this one!
Good! I am glad there’s at least one challenging puzzle out there!
But no there are no tricks to using the numbers, no negative sign to add… its just putting the numbers in the right order. Fractions do come into play however 
Ok- so we can use each number more than once and do stuff like (3/7 - 4/8)/7/4 *7 ?
It effectively adds a lot of possibilities. I will have a look at it later then
since I need to work right now
I think I found it! (if I understood well what you explained we were allowed to do)
Here you go: (8-3)/(4/7)*(8/7)=10
I did not check all the 21840 possibilities but some other ones might work too.
while I am sure your solution is good and all, you should only have to place one number in each blank slot…without repeating the numbers… man this is a tough one eh?
I made a mistake while copying your equation: I noted (_-_)/_*_=10 which is not really what we have to solve right?
Ok - I don’t give up: I’ll be back later on with the right answer (with the right expression, it might be easier
)
I knew it would be easier with the right statement
Here we go: (3-7/4)*8
Now I’ll be able to sleep tonight
Woot! Good job! Aaron said you were good at math
Actually I have a degree in math engineering (applied mathematics and computer science): that’s why I did not want to give up on this puzzle
[...] are the answers to my second Lazy Sunday Puzzle Post (to catch up, you can read it here). Thanks to all who tried them out, and I’ll see about posting some more in the [...]