Three people enter a room and have a green or blue hat placed on their heads. They cannot see their own hat but can see the other hats.
The colour of each hat is purely random. They could all be green, blue, or any combination of green and blue.
They need to guess their own hat colour by writing it on a piece of paper, or they can write 'pass'.
They cannot communicate with each other in any way once the game starts. But they can have a strategy meeting before the game.
If at least one of them guesses correctly they win $10,000 each, but if anyone guesses incorrectly they all get nothing.
What is the best strategy?
How old is your son? asked a man to his neighbour. My son is five times as old as my daughter and my wife is five times as old as my son. I am twice as old as my wife whereas my grandmother, who is celebrating her eighty-first birthday is as old as all of us put together.
Create a number using only the digits 4,4,3,3,2,2,1 and 1. So i can only be eight digits. You have to make sure the ones are separated by one digit, the twos are separated by two digits the threes are separated with three digits and the fours are separated by four digits
I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.
He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.
Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?
The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.
Its something that each of us devours,
Not just us but birds, beats, trees, and flowers,
Frets iron and nibbles steel,
Toil hard stones to meal,
Exterminates king, collapse town,
And blows the mountains down.
