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        riddles >> medium >> Riddle - Identify three workers.  Need some h
        
(Message started by: tonyv17 on Sep 10^th, 2008, 8:27am)

Title: Riddle - Identify three workers. Need some h
Post by tonyv17 on Sep 10^th, 2008, 8:27am

This riddle was presented to us at work. It seems like this is a forum of intelligent people so I will throw this out there. I don't know what difficulty this riddle is so I will start it off in medium...

Jennifer, Tom and Frank work the night shift in a particular laboratory and all file their reports from the same computer log in so it is impossible to tell which person wrote which report. Looking at their reports over time, the auditor noticed that one of the three was a delusional and always thought things were exactly opposite of what they were, one was obsessively precise and accurate and one wrong as often as they were right. But, he didn’t know which was which. So he asked Tom if Jennifer was accurate only half the time and by Tom’s answer he new which of night shift was which.

Q. What was Tom’s answer? And which description fits each of the night shift?

Title: Re: Riddle - Identify three workers. Need some h
Post by Grimbal on Sep 10^th, 2008, 9:40am

If Tom answers yes, it could be Tom is accurate, Jennifer is half-accurate and Frank is delusional.
But it also could be that Tom is delusional, Jennifer is accurate and Frank is half-accurate.

If Tom answers no, it could be Tom is accurate, Jennifer is delusional and Frank is half-accurate.
Or Tom could be delusional, Jennifer half-accurate and Frank accurate.

So if Tom answers by yes or no, I don't see a solution.

Title: Re: Riddle - Identify three workers. Need some h
Post by SMQ on Sep 10^th, 2008, 9:51am

But if Tom were delusional, he would "[think] things were exactly opposite of what they were," and so would think you had not just asked him whether Jen was half-accurate, and so wouldn't answer. (So I should clearly not choose the glass in front of you!) ;D

And if Tom is the unreliable one, no matter what he answers -- "yes", "no", no answer, or even "bork" -- you still wouldn't have learned any information about the other two.

I don't think it can be done in a single question.

--SMQ

Title: Re: Riddle - Identify three workers. Need some h
Post by 1337b4k4 on Sep 10^th, 2008, 1:27pm

What is the "opposite" of half-accurate?

Title: Re: Riddle - Identify three workers. Need some h
Post by towr on Sep 10^th, 2008, 1:32pm

on 09/10/08 at 13:27:21, 1337b4k4 wrote:

What is the "opposite" of half-accurate?

Not-half-accurate, so either of delusional or precise in this case.

Title: Re: Riddle - Identify three workers. Need some h
Post by Grimbal on Sep 10^th, 2008, 3:17pm

What if the delusional person believes to be accurate? :-/