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1.
The Fork in the Road
A logician vacationing in the South Seas finds himself on
an island inhabited by the two proverbial tribes of liars and
truth-tellers.
Members of one tribe always tell the truth;
members of the other always lie.
He comes to a fork in the
road and has to ask a native bystander which branch he should
take to reach a village.
He has no way of telling whether the
native is a truth-teller or a liar.
The logician thinks a
moment, then asks one question only.
From the reply he knows which road to take.
What question does he ask?
Answer:
The Fork in the Road
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2.
Scrambled
Box Tops
Three boxes - one containing two black marbles, one containing
two white marbles, the third containing one black marble and
one white marble - are put before you.
The boxes are labeled
to indicate their contents - BB, WW and BW - but you are told that
the tops have been switched so that every box is now incorrectly labeled.
You are asked to take one marble at a time out of any box, without
looking inside, and, using this sampling process, to determine the
contents of all three boxes.
What is the smallest number of drawings you will need to
determine the contents of each box?
Answer:
Scrambled Box Tops
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3.
Our Second Competition
What Would You Most Like to Read on Opening Your Paper?
The First Prize in the second of this year’s
competitions goes to Mr. Arthur Robinson, whose witty entry was easily the best
of those we received. His choice of what he would like to read on opening his
paper was headed ‘Our Second Competition’ and was as follows:
"The First Prize in the second of this year’s
competitions goes to Mr. Arthur Robinson, whose witty entry was easily the best
of those we received. His choice of what he would like to read on opening his
paper was headed 'Our Second Competition,' but owing to space restrictions we cannot
print all of it."
- From Vicious Circles and Infinity: An Anthology of Paradoxes, Patrick
Hughes and George Brecht, Penguin Books, NY, 1979
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