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 Difficult Riddles

A word I know has six letters it contains, remove one letter and 12 remain. What is it?

Asked by Neha on 23 Mar 2025


It is a six-letter word.
The first four letters are me.
The second and last letters are the same.
The fourth second and last letter is payment.

Who is it?

Asked by Neha on 07 Feb 2024

It is a nine-letter word.
The exact opposite of the phrase "friendly and outgoing"
It contains the word "over".
It starts will a vowel.

What is it?

Asked by Neha on 25 Mar 2025


What question can you never answer yes to?

Asked by Neha on 09 May 2022

What does man love more than life, hate more than death or mortal strife; That which contented men desire; the poor have, the rich require; the miser spends, the spendthrift saves, and all men carry to their graves?

Asked by Neha on 15 Mar 2025

With pointed fangs I sit and wait; with piercing force I crunch out fate; grabbing victims, proclaiming might; physically joining with a single bite. What am I?

Asked by Neha on 13 Mar 2025


Tell me the Hindi name of a Vegetable which if we remove 1st word will become a precious Stone and by removing the last word it will become a sweet eatable.

Asked by Neha on 16 Apr 2025

There is something which you can be arrested for attempting but not for successfully completing.

Asked by Neha on 30 Apr 2024

I never was there, I am always to be.
You have never ever seen me, not ever you will.
Yet I am the confidence of everyone.

Who Am I?

Asked by Neha on 01 Feb 2024


I look at you, you look at me I raise my right, you raise your left. What am I?

Asked by Neha on 24 Apr 2023

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Out of the Box

The phrase “thinking outside the box” was popularised from the solution to a topographical puzzle involving 9 dots in a box shape.