A riddle

[Khael]

In a small village in the middle of nowhere, three innocent prisoners are sitting in a jail. One day, the cruel jailer takes them out and places them in a line on three chairs, in such a way that man C can see both man A and man B, man B can see only man A, and man A can see none of the other men. The jailer shows them 5 hats, 2 of which are black and 3 of which are white. After this, he blindfolds the men, places one hat on each of their heads, and removes the blindfolds again. The jailer tells his three prisoners that if one of them is able to determine the color of his hat within one minute, all of them are released. Otherwise, they will all be shot. None of the prisoners can see his own hat, and all are intelligent. After 59 seconds, man A shouts out the (correct) color of his hat!

The Question: What is the color of man A's hat, and how does he know?

[Darkstar]

tell us

[Khael]

Hint: Why did he wait until the last second?

[Iluil]

now that one is easy! ;)

A <----B <----C

pretend you are C:
if A & B had both black hats you´d yell 'white' cause your smaaart
but you don´t yell...so B knows A doesn´t see 2 black hats after a short while.
now pretend you are B:
only valid combinations left for A|B hats are w|w w|b b|w
if A had a black hat you´d yell after a short while cause you must have a white hat...but you don´t yell..

now pretend you are A:
You yell when almost no time is left, cause you know you must have a white hat of course.

[Ransac]

maybe his hat changed color somehow?

[Vinilaa]

I love that riddle. A is wearing a white hat, as Iluil pointed out. But Iluil made one typo, can anyone find it? :eek: :D

[Khael]

You're :p

[Qaediin]

you'd;)

[Gryfalia]

Yes, white.

Fun one.

Gryfalia

[Vinilaa]

Originally posted by Iluil
now that one is easy! ;)

A <----B <----C

pretend you are C:
if A & B had both black hats you´d yell 'white' cause your smaaart
but you don´t yell...so B knows A doesn´t see 2 black hats after a short while.


Well actually I wasn't referring to the grammatical typos :eek: I was referring to the part where he says B knows A doesn't see 2 black hats... Of course A doesn't see two hats of any kind, correct? So obviously he meant to type C instead of A.

:cool:

[Stitz]

Great one =)

[Inizen]

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/riddles/intro.shtml

one of my favorite sites :o

and possibly where you got that riddle, hehe

[Fizbain]

The situation would never had presented itself, why would you have innocent prisoners? :p

-Fiz

[Trazz]

"Fatherless and motherless,
Born without a skin,
Spoke when it came into the world,
And never spoke again."


hint: If you had no nose, you'd never know this one.







A FART!....

[Trazz]

You have one match. You enter a room that contains a wood-burning stove, a kerosene lamp and a fireplace.
Which should you light first.










THE MATCH SILLY!

[Serendib]

The answer is: None

No such thing as an innocent prisoner :P

[Khael]

Obviously you have too much trust in the system Serendib :p

[Vinilaa]

Originally posted by Khael
Obviously you have too much trust in the system Serendib :p

Yep. It's unfortunate but true that innocent people are imprisoned all the time. Some of them are even put to death. :(

[Eomer]

Hah, it's not even some. I would be willing to bet that at least 5-10%, if not more, of the people who are on death row shouldn't be there.

Hell, look at the stats, they are very telling. Virtually everyone on death row is a minority with little education and no money for a high powered lawyer. Of course, maybe that demographic is just more likely to kill people etc, but I doubt that's the whole story.

[Famor]

I wouldn't even say 5%, with the advances in forensic science it's hard to go wrong.

[Serendib]

No, I dont have faith in the system. I was merely assuming that in this LOGIC puzzle, the world inside it would be completely LOGICAL.

Like the "where did they bury the survivors" question... people have been buried alive, but we assume that inside any riddle everything is taken to be right, and just within its own reasoning.

Plus the fact I was joking :P

[GainDRO]

Actually I have read estimates that place that at higher than 5%, especially if its in the Federal System.
Don't recall where I read it though nor do I remember what the percentage was.

[Eomer]

Considering the fact that most people who are on death row atm have probably been there for 5-10 years, recent advances in forensics don't mean much to them, since their crimes and the investigations were done up to 15-20 years ago.

And plenty of people are convicted of crimes based merely on eye-witness accounts and circumstantial evidence. And then plenty of people who have tons of forensic evidence against them get off anyway (hi OJ!).

No justice system is perfect, obviously. That's why a death penalty is a pretty scary thing to have, because mistakes do get made.