TWCP OTD (The Who Cares Puzzle Of The Day) - 2st of February, 2017
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ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Assuming there is an equal number of black and white hats, the guy at the tail end of the queue can see every hat except his own. He can correctly guess the colour of his own. The guy in front of him uses that and the hats he can see to say what colour his hat is, and so on.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Since you didn't add any other rules, why not take off their hat, look at it, and then give the answer?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
I asked the warden - touching the hat punishable by death...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
"It never ceases to amaze me that a spacecraft launched in 1977 can be fixed remotely from Earth." ― Brian Cox
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I asked the warden - touching the hat punishable by death...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
But the hat is on his head, so it is touching him. Therefore he is already touching the hat and all prisoners die immediately.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt -
ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:
Those are guess wrong will be executed...
Then they should all refuse to guess! :-D
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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But the hat is on his head, so it is touching him. Therefore he is already touching the hat and all prisoners die immediately.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
I told - the warden is a brutal creature...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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But the hat is on his head, so it is touching him. Therefore he is already touching the hat and all prisoners die immediately.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
OriginalGriff wrote:
and all prisoners die immediately.
That does fix the overcrowding issue.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data. There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
The guy at the back can save the others but not himself. They agree a code - let's say if there's an even number of black hats in front of him he calls black, otherwise he calls white. That gives everyone in front of him enough information to work out what colour hat they're wearing e.g. second guy knows that there are an even number of black hats but knows that there are an odd number so can conclude that his own hat is black. The guy at the back's chances are 50-50 (probably less if a sadistic guard heard the prisoners devising the code) but at least he's taking one for the team. Solution 2 is build a time-machine; go back and vote for someone else. This is a very unhealthy country that they're living in.
Slogans aren't solutions.
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Assuming there is an equal number of black and white hats, the guy at the tail end of the queue can see every hat except his own. He can correctly guess the colour of his own. The guy in front of him uses that and the hats he can see to say what colour his hat is, and so on.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
The number of black and white hats is unknown...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:
Those are guess wrong will be executed...
Then they should all refuse to guess! :-D
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
Alas - just after you left I asked the warden about that. He said it's guess or die. (my answer to the unsaid is better, so there!)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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The number of black and white hats is unknown...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Martyr's solution: Tell the person in front of you their hat color. Take your guess and hope they can all thank you later.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Are there an infinite number of prisoners? Death by infinity puzzles and Axiom of Choice - YouTube[^]
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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Martyr's solution: Tell the person in front of you their hat color. Take your guess and hope they can all thank you later.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
That will break on the first color change...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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That will break on the first color change...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
No - each prisoner looks at the prisoner in front of them and reports his hat color to him - they can then do the same for the next prisoner and announce (correctly) their own hat color since it was told to them by the prisoner behind them. They can all be the same color or any number of identifiable colors. Only fails if there are liars or blind prisoners - but picks up again.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
-
ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Ask the guy behind you what color your hat is
If it's not broken, fix it until it is. Everything makes sense in someone's mind. Ya can't fix stupid.
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ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Paint their, *ahem* "appendages" with silver paint, drop their trousers, and look at the hat in the reflection. To every problem, there's always an easy solution.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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ALL MEN MUST DIE? The warden of an overloaded prison decided to ease the situation in a somehow brutal way... He told to the inmates, that from the next day he will line up the inmates from each section (between 20 to 30) in a way that they can see the inmates before them, but not those behind. The guards will but a black or white party-hat on the head of each inmate in a random way... From back to front, each prisoner have to say what color the hat is on his own head. Those are guess wrong will be executed... What the inmates can do?
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
The Prisoners, realizing that the warden will be fired if they all die, all answer RED! He kills them all, is fired for there are no prisoners, and they get their revenge! Oh, and the guards end up working for walmart. Or they all sneeze at the same time and all the hats FALL OFF Magically. Or they tell the guy in front of them, and the last guy changes places with the second from last guy when the guards are not looking.
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I told - the warden is a brutal creature...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
The way I heard it, one guess is allowed to be wrong, if more than one then all prisoners die. You can't turn around, only see the prisoners in front, can only provide one answer. Very difficult for many, quite simple for those of us who lived in the early days of serial communications and error-prone memory.
