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        riddles >> easy >> Black and white
        
(Message started by: DeMark on Sep 26^th, 2004, 10:53am)

Title: Black and white
Post by DeMark on Sep 26^th, 2004, 10:53am

Professor Smith invited 3 of his students to his place and told them: "I have a few hats here, 2 of them are black, and the rest is white." He put a hat on the head of every student, so they could see what is the colour of hats his friends have, but they couldn't see the colour of the hat on their head.

When he did it, he asked the first student: "What is the colour of the hat on your head?", and he answered: "I don't know". It went the same way with the second student. What is the third student going to say?

Title: Re: Black and white
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on Sep 26^th, 2004, 11:35am

Quote:

What is the third student going to say?

"Search me (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=;action=search)." ::)

Title: Re: Black and white
Post by rmsgrey on Sep 26^th, 2004, 11:37am

The third student probably says "I don't know" - I know when I was a student, I wouldn't have trusted my friends not to stitch me up in such a situation, so since the third student has to judge the situation primarily based on what his friends said, unless he sees two black hats he can't be sure what colour his own is.

[e]great minds...[/e]

Title: Re: Black and white
Post by Grimbal on Sep 26^th, 2004, 1:47pm

Hehe... I just thought of the following problem:

The professor tells the 3 students: "I picked the 3 of you out of 5 students, 2 of them have black hair, 3 of them are blond.

He asks the first student: "What is the colour of your hair?", and he answers: "I don't know". It goes the same way with the second student. What is the third student likely to answer to the same question?

Title: Re: Black and white
Post by asterix on Sep 26^th, 2004, 1:55pm

These guys are just being silly. Of course, the third player answers that his hat is [hide] green. Since there is no stated penalty for guessing wrong, the first players would have guessed unless they figured guessing was hopeless. They know that if they both say "I don't know" the third person will know the color of his hat (assuming the professor was telling the truth), and that would upset the class curve. Therefore they must be convinced that their answers will be of no help to him. What they don't know is that the third student is aware that Professor Smith's maiden name is Katie O'Reilly (and the Irish are known for their blarney), so it must be green. QED. [/hide]

Title: Re: Black and white
Post by THUDandBLUNDER on Sep 26^th, 2004, 5:33pm

on 09/26/04 at 13:47:05, Grimbal wrote:

Hehe...well, in that (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_easy;action=display;num=1027807475) case he answers, "Search me, pal."