Prisoner to be freed

The warden meets with 23 new prisoners when they arrive. He tells them, "You may meet today and plan a strategy. But after today, you will be in isolated cells and will have no communication with one another.

"In the prison is a switch room, which contains two light switches labeled 1 and 2, each of which can be in either up or the down position. I am not telling you their present positions. The switches are not connected to anything.

"After today, from time to time whenever I feel so inclined, I will select one prisoner at random and escort him to the switch room. This prisoner will select one of the two switches and reverse its position. He must flip one switch when he visits the switch room, and may only flip one of the switches. Then he'll be led back to his cell.

"No one else will be allowed to alter the switches until I lead the next prisoner into the switch room. I'm going to choose prisoners at random. I may choose the same guy three times in a row, or I may jump around and come back. I will not touch the switches, if I wanted you dead you would already be dead.

"Given enough time, everyone will eventually visit the switch room the same number of times as everyone else. At any time, anyone may declare to me, 'We have all visited the switch room.'

"If it is true, then you will all be set free. If it is false, and somebody has not yet visited the switch room, you will all die horribly. You will be carefully monitored, and any attempt to break any of these rules will result in instant death to all of you"

What is the strategy they come up with so that they can be free?




Similar Riddles

How many triangles are there on the puzzle below?

Let

Asked by Neha on 10 Feb 2024


There are two guys standing face to face in a room. On a wall, there is a clock. One of those is a prophet. He tells the other guy that he will be stabbed in the back in five minutes.

Shocked to hear that, the other guy stares at the clock. Just after the five minutes, he is stabbed on the back. Can you tell what happened?

Asked by Neha on 29 Apr 2025

You are confined in a room and given two metal rods. Out of these two rods, one is magnet and the other is the iron rod. They look starkly similar. You don't have any other metal object in the room.

How will you decide which one of those is magnet?

Asked by Neha on 25 Apr 2021


You have 10 balls with you. A friend of yours out of nowhere asks you to place those ten balls in five lines such that each of the lines has exactly 4 balls on them. He needs to check your intelligence. Prove him by doing the task.

Asked by Neha on 17 Mar 2023

A river should be crossed by a father, a mother and their two sons and two daughters.
There are some rules that should be followed while crossing the river. There can be only two people in the raft while crossing. The daughters cannot be with their father unless there is the presence of the mother. The sons cannot be with their mothers unless the father is present. Unless the guard is on the board, the criminals cannot be with any of the family members. Only the adults like the father, the guard, and the mother knows to use the raft.

How will they cross the river?

Asked by Neha on 28 Jun 2021

What is more useful when it is broken?

Asked by Neha on 30 Mar 2022


A train leaves from point A for point B at 80 mph. After half an hour, another train leaves from point B for point A at 60 mph.

Which of the trains will be farther from point A when they meet ?

Asked by Neha on 23 Jan 2021

There are five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) in the English language.
Can you tell us a word that contains all these vowels?

Asked by Neha on 20 Sep 2023

In a school, there are four subjects. Seventy percent of students study English, seventy five percent of students study Science, eighty five percent of students study Mathematics and eighty percent of students study Spanish.

Can you calculate the percentage of students that study all four subjects?

Asked by Neha on 16 Apr 2023


Solve the puzzle by telling what does below picture means.

Solve by Name Puzzle

Asked by Neha on 28 Nov 2025

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has crushed all human records in the puzzle game “2048,” achieving a high score of 839,732 and beating the game in only 973 moves without using any undo.