Puzzle

[Daydreamer]

That one is easy, the letter E.

[Darksoul]

A Rancher has three sons and 17 horses. In his will is stated that the oldest son gets half the horses, the second oldest a third and the jongest a ninth. Without chopping any horses to pieces, or rounding, how are they devided?

Let's assume that I'm a rancher too, I'll add a horse of my own to the will and then divide things like this:

17 + 1<--(my horse) = 18

To the first son:
18/2 = 9

To the second son:
18/3 = 6

To the third son:
18/9 = 2

There everyone get's an integer number of horses and it's more than what they were suppossed to have, and 9+6+2=17 so I keep my horse too.

Here's mine:
There are 12 coins and among those there is one coin that is a forgery, you have to tell appart the forgery from the rest, the forgery is so good that you cannot tell it appart from the originals just with your eyes, the only thing that you know about the forgery is that is ligther the the original ones but the differene is so mild that you cannot tell by using your hand; you have a beam balance, a lousy one that is only good for two measurements; using the beam balance only two times separate the forgery from the rest of the coins.

[Cupcake]

Darksoul: weigh 6 coins each time

Heres a bunch:

1.It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.

2.Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.

3.This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town
And beats high mountain down.

4.Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.

5.Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.

6.What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes
And yet never grows?

[Aznman]

To the first one, I think it is silence.

Cupcake, your answer will not tell which coin out of the six is a fake. I've heard this before, but I forget how...

Probably heard this one:

What moves on four,
then on two,
then on three,
and finally, four.

[silentmagesoul]

Cupcake, those are totally from The Hobbit by JR Tolkien.

[Cupcake]

Yep! They are my favorite of all riddles, especially number 3... I've now realized that 6 is wrong for Darksoul's puzzle

[theorigamist]

Darksoul, I'm almost positive that three weighings are necessary. First split the 12 into piles of four, and call the three piles A, B, and C. Weigh A against B. If they balance, then C contains the fake. If they don't, the lighter of the two contains the fake. Let's say that A contains the fake. Then split A in half and weigh two of them against the other two. Whichever pair is lighter contains the fake. Then weigh those two coins against each other.

Here's another coin problem: You have 13 quarters on a table, 9 of which are heads up and 4 of which are tails up. You are allowed to flip coins over (i.e. turn a heads into a tails, or vice versa). But you have no way of knowing at any point which quarters are heads and which are tails. You must split the quarters into two piles with the same number of heads-up quarters in each pile.

[Darksoul]

What moves on four,
then on two,
then on three,
and finally, four.

The human, when he's a baby he crawls, when he's an adult he walks on his two legs an when he is old he uses a cane to walk. It's the riddle that the infamous sphinx used on all the travellers that passed in front of her, if the traveller did not answer correctly the sphynx crushed the traveller with a rock, but at last the riddle was solved by Oedipus and the Sphinx shocked crushed her self with a rock. Hey but we all know that (sarcasm aside).

theorigamist only two weighings necessary

[Aznman]

I just read my post, and the last line should by "and finally six." I am thinking about a person using a walker....