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

You have $100 with you and you have to buy 100 balls with it. 100 is the exact figure and you can't go below or above the numbers and you have to use the entire $100. If there is no kind of tax applied how many of each of the following balls will you be able to buy:

Green Balls costing $6
Yellow Balls costing $3
Black Balls costing $0.10

Now, how many of each must you buy to fulfil the condition given?

Asked by Neha on 30 Jul 2023


James ordered a fishing rod, priced at $3.56. Unfortunately, James is an Eskimo who lives in a very remote part of Greenland and the import rules forbid any package longer than 4 feet to be imported. The fishing rod was 4 feet and 1 inch, just a little too long, so how can the fishing rod be mailed to James without breaking the rules? Ideally James would like the fishing rod to arrive in one piece!

Asked by Neha on 11 Apr 2022

I am written with two letters.
I said with the one.
I usually am seen with the two.

Who am I?

Asked by Neha on 28 Jun 2026


What has hands, but can’t clap?

Asked by Neha on 21 Feb 2022

Identify the hidden meaning behind this picture?

Picture Riddle

Asked by Neha on 17 Feb 2023

In a fruit store, there was a unique weighing machine that was made to weigh only cherries and strawberries as they were priced the same.

Other fruits like watermelons or mango had different machines as they were expensive.

A man successfully buys watermelons at the price of cherries. How?

Asked by Neha on 30 Apr 2023


A fresh card pile is taken out of a box (the pile has 54 cards including 2 jokers). One joker is taken out and then the cards are shuffled for a good amount of times. After shuffling, two piles are made by dividing that one pile.



What is the possibility that one of the piles will have a card sequence from A to K in order?

Card Mixing Riddle

Asked by Neha on 04 Apr 2021

The Judge knows that Alamgir was killed by his girlfriend Jasline, but the judge is unsure whether to punish her. Why?

Asked by Neha on 18 May 2025

What does Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh have in common?

Asked by Neha on 17 Jul 2025


Assume there are approximately 5,000,000,000 (5 billion) people on Earth. What would you estimate to be the result, if you multiply together the number of fingers on every person's left hand? (For the purposes of this exercise, thumbs count as fingers, for five fingers per hand.) If you cannot estimate the number then try to guess how long the number would be.

Asked by Neha on 24 Sep 2025

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Crossword puzzles

In the 1920s, people feared that crossword puzzles would contribute to illiteracy.