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posted by janrinok on Sunday October 23 2016, @04:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the head-scratching dept.

I just happened to see this story appear in our #rss-bot feed. How to Solve the World's Hardest Logic Puzzle. Given that this is the weekend, I thought it might make for an interesting challenge and discussion.

To set the stage for the puzzle, the author provides some background on Raymond Smullyan, the puzzle's composer:

While a doctoral student at Princeton University in 1957, studying under a founder of theoretical computer science, Raymond Smullyan would occasionally visit New York City. On one of these visits, he met a "very charming lady musician" and, on their first date, Smullyan, an incorrigible flirt, proceeded very logically—and sneakily.

"Would you please do me a favor?" he asked her. "I am to make a statement. If the statement is true, would you give me your autograph?"

Content to play along, she replied, "I don't see why not."

"If the statement is false," he went on, "you don't give me your autograph."

"Alright ..."

His statement was: "You'll give me neither your autograph nor a kiss."

It takes a moment, but the cleverness of Smullyan's ploy eventually becomes clear.

A truthful statement gets him her autograph, as they agreed. But Smullyan's statement, supposing it's true, leads to contradiction: It rules out giving an autograph. That makes Smullyan's statement false. And if Smullyan's statement is false, then the charming lady musician will give him either an autograph or a kiss. Now you see the trap: She has already agreed not to reward a false statement with an autograph.

With logic, Smullyan turned a false statement into a kiss. (And into a beautiful romance: The two would eventually marry.)

Clever! But enough with the setup — What's the puzzle?

The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever goes like this:

Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for "yes" and "no" are "da" and "ja," in some order. You do not know which word means which.

The story's author is, himself, a bit of a puzzle-poser. The story tells how to solve the puzzle, but does not actually provide the solution. Are there any Soylentils up to the challenge?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @03:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @03:13AM (#418024)

    > The unwashed masses and labor merely need to be contained, controlled, and profited from. Plenty of evidence for this clear pattern of behavior on her part.

    And any evidence to the contrary? Or does that not count?

  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:21AM

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:21AM (#418353)

    There is extremely little evidence to the contrary. Other than her recent push to create Progressive policy, which can still be interpreted cynically, no.

    Listen to her speeches. Read what Wikileaks had provided. It's not a fatal blow, or even perhaps especially scandalous, but it shows how she feels about the average person versus the elites. One person in public, one person in private (read: in the company of the elites). That's fucking terrible.

    Her 6 years as a board member of Wall Mart don't do her any favors. She never spoke up, or against the worker, but in fact helped anti-union activities.

    In the past when she tried to give us health care, she was beaten down brutally.... but instead of continuing to fight for us she joined the other side of the health care debate. She took money from them.

    Very little in her favor other than im-not-Trump.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.