Skip to main content

Guess the Number


Sage had a 1, Rosemary had an 11, and Tim had a 2.

From Sage's statement, he had to have an odd number. He knew that the sum of all three numbers was even, so if his number was odd, one of the other two numbers would have to be odd, and the other even, leaving them unequal.

Rosemary could deduce this, too, so when she saw an 11, she knew that Sage had a 1 and Tim had a 2. If she had seen a 12, she would have known that the other two boys each had a 1, which is contradicted by her saying that she already knew they all had different numbers. If she saw any number other than an 11 (say 9, for example), she would not have know which odd number Sage held. (In our example, he could have had a 1 and Tim a 4, or he could have had a 3 and Tim a 2).

Tim, understanding all of this, therefore knew their numbers.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Greedy Pirates

If there are two pirates left (#4 & #5), #4 has no options. No matter what he proposes, pirate #5 will disagree, resulting in a 1-1 vote (no majority). #5 will kill #4 and will keep all of the gold. Now say there are 3 pirates left. #4 has to agree with whatever #3 decides, because if he doesn't #3 will be killed (because #5 won't vote for #3's proposal no matter what it is). #3 will just propose that he keep all of the gold and will get a 2-1 vote in his favor. Now if there are 4 pirates left: #3 won't vote for #2's proposal because if #2's fails, #3 will get all of the gold. #4 and #5 know that they will get nothing if the decision goes to #3, so they will vote for #2's proposal if he gives them one gold piece each. Therefore, #2 would keep 998 gold, and #4 and #5 would each get one gold. So let's wrap this up: Pirate #1 needs 2 other votes. He will not get a vote from #2 because #2 will get 998 gold if #1's plan fails. #1 offers #3 o...

Guess Liars

  If there are exactly N liars, then the last N men are truthtellers, leaving the first (12-N) men to be liars. Therefore, N=12-N, N=6. The first 6 men are liars, and the last 6 men are truthtellers.

Murder!!!

   Ans : 16 Name the 10 people with letters: A, B, C, ... and so on. A through F each call any one of G, H, I, or J (it doesn't matter which one). That makes six calls so far. Then G calls H and I calls J, after which G calls I and H calls J. Now we've used 10 calls, and G, H, I, and J all know everything. Finally, each of A through F is called by someone in G through J - 6 more calls to get everyone knowing everything. 16 calls in all.