Puzzle Nekst 1: Coconometrics
The first puzzle of this academic year is presented to you by professor Willem Haemers. After a relaxing and exotic holiday, we all had to go back to work. In order to retain this holiday feeling, let us combine econometrics with tropical coconuts: coconometrics!
Koos Kraker lives in a apartment building with 36 floors and wants to find out from which floor a coconut falls into pieces when dropped. If Koos has one nut he can find this out by dropping the nut from Floor 1, Floor 2, Floor 3, etc., until the coconut breaks. Then the maximum number of trials is 36. But Koos has two (identical) coconuts. Develop a strategy for Koos to find out the lowest floor from which a coconut will break, which minimizes the maximum number of trials.
Please send your solution to Nekst@Asset-Econometrics.nl before November 30, 2012. A crate of beer or a delicious pie, whichever the winners prefers, will be waiting for whoever has the best (partial) solution! Good luck!
