Re: Re: Re: (OT) Meditate on this brain-teaser

Ummh. No. As stated a player can only be sure of their hat color if they see two white hats as the only stated condition is at least one blue hat. All players see at least one blue hat. None of the players see two whites. They are all in the position of seeing at least one potentially lethal blue hat.

In fact A and B are identical in all respects. They are better denoted A and A'. They both see B-X where X is C's hat color. C sees B-B. No one sees the required W-W combination. There is no logical solution. The lack of response on all player's behalfs is logical. C is a punter

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Comment on Re: Re: Re: (OT) Meditate on this brain-teaser

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Re: Re: (OT) Meditate on this brain-teaser by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Dec 13, 2001 at 18:50 UTC
Yes, you're right. All players do see at least one blue hat. But, the puzzle depends on this: C is trying to determine if the other players see one blue hat or two blue hats! Another thing that might be confusing you is that this is a proof by negation. The proof isn't that C has a blue hat on his head. The proof is that C doesn't have a white hat on his head. Since `!white == blue`, C has a blue hat. ------ We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.	[reply] [d/l]
Re4: (OT) Meditate on this brain-teaser by blakem (Monsignor) on Dec 14, 2001 at 06:31 UTC
Lets look at this from an outsiders point of view... From this new perspective there are only three scenerios --- 1 blue hat in the group, 2 blue hats in the group, and 3 blue hats in the group One blue hat - Guy wearing the blue hat sees two white hats, jumps up immediately and yells "BLUE" - Time to play 10 seconds. Two blue hats - One of the guys wearing a blue hat realizes that if his own hat was white, the other guy would have yelled "BLUE" 10 seconds into the game. Since this didn't happen, his own hat must be blue. Time to play: 5 minutes. Three blue hats - Someone realizes that if his own hat was white, one of the other two would have jumped up and yelled "BLUE" at the 5 minute mark. Since that didn't happen, his own hat must be, "BLUE!" - Time to play 20 minutes. -Blake	[reply]