Riddles
-
Anonymous
Re: Riddles
/me casts Thread Necromancy
The answer to the riddle is to say to one of them "Would he tell me that this road leads to Heaven/The Castle?" and if the answer is "yes", the *other* road leads to heaven, and that one leads to *bum bum bummmm...* Certain Death.
Gods, that was a delicious movie. ^_^ Mmmm... Jareth.
The answer to the riddle is to say to one of them "Would he tell me that this road leads to Heaven/The Castle?" and if the answer is "yes", the *other* road leads to heaven, and that one leads to *bum bum bummmm...* Certain Death.
Gods, that was a delicious movie. ^_^ Mmmm... Jareth.
Re: Riddles
I hadn't seen this thread before now . . . but I was kind of surprised more people didn't know the riddle? It's like the most famous logic puzzle, you know, ever. It's called Knights and Knaves, or sometimes the Raymond Smullyman riddle. The one they use in Labyrinth is considered to be the basic form of the riddle. The variations are actually much harder.
Like, a third questionee is added, and his name is "Chaos" or "Random" because every time he is asked a question, his mental state randomly assigns his behavior as a truth-teller or a lie-teller.
Or, maybe you still stick with the two original guys, but while they understand your questions, the will only respond in their native language, and the problem is that you don't know which word means "yes" and which means "no."
So putting these together you end up with what's called "The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever," which is worded thusly:
"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."
George Boolos, the logician, also added these caveats:
* It could be that some god gets asked more than one question (and hence that some god is not asked any question at all).
* What the second question is, and to which god it is put, may depend on the answer to the first question. (And of course similarly for the third question.)
* Whether Random speaks truly or not should be thought of as depending on the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.
* Random will answer 'da' or 'ja' when asked any yes-no question.[1]
And because we are on the internet, learning is easy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardes ... uzzle_Ever
Like, a third questionee is added, and his name is "Chaos" or "Random" because every time he is asked a question, his mental state randomly assigns his behavior as a truth-teller or a lie-teller.
Or, maybe you still stick with the two original guys, but while they understand your questions, the will only respond in their native language, and the problem is that you don't know which word means "yes" and which means "no."
So putting these together you end up with what's called "The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever," which is worded thusly:
"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."
George Boolos, the logician, also added these caveats:
* It could be that some god gets asked more than one question (and hence that some god is not asked any question at all).
* What the second question is, and to which god it is put, may depend on the answer to the first question. (And of course similarly for the third question.)
* Whether Random speaks truly or not should be thought of as depending on the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.
* Random will answer 'da' or 'ja' when asked any yes-no question.[1]
And because we are on the internet, learning is easy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardes ... uzzle_Ever