There are twelve prisoners that are going to be executed the next day. The king, seeing how the prisoners had bright minds, didn't want to see their talents go to waste, and gave them a chance to survive:

"All of you will be lined up tomorrow, facing the same direction. While lined up, we will randomly place a hat, either Red or Black, randomly upon all of your heads. The hat will be placed so that you canNOT see the color of the hat placed upon you. None of you shall move, whisper, or make any noises or symbols that would allow you to communicate with each other. An executor will come to the last person in line. The only thing you can do is, when the executor comes, you will write down what color of your hat is and hand it to the executor. He will then announce which color you have chosen to all the prisoners, then proceed to the next person in line.

If you wrote down the right color of your hat... you will be pardoned of your sins. If it is wrong, you shall be killed on the spot!

You have an entire night to think of a plan to save as much of you as possible."

Line up in front of each other instead of to the side of each other. Then the person at the back can see all the hats in front of him. Assuming there is an equal number of red and black hats, he can tell by counting the hats in front of him. So if the hats go
RBBRRRBBRB
The person at the back sees that there are four reds in front so he knows he is red. The next in line does the same, except he knows from being told that there are only 4 red hats left. He can see them in front so he knows that he is black, etc.

Write down on the piece of paper:

"What colour is my hat?"

The executor will then announce the colour of your hat.
You will then know the colour, and be able to correctly write the colour of the hat.

The executor announces your decision. And moves along.

I swear viet posted just so he could spell Color like that 4 different times. ;o GET ON WITH IT

He doesnt announce what colour your hat IS, he announces what colour you THINK it is, which you have written down on the paper.

The first of last is the end of this section,
The second ticks away like the start of the third hour's direction.
My third is the end, but not of these riddles,
Rather it is the end of both this puzzles!
Like the sun that shines, the last few is a child,
Like a daughter, but not so mild.


I can't believe I got it to rhyme too! I hope you learnt something here.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 7 2009, 3:21 am by zany_001. Reason: Wrong word, would have confused people.

All of the prisoners but one can be saved.

The prisoner in the back counts the number of blue hats ahead of him -- if there is an even number, he shouts 'BLUE'; if there is an odd number, he shouts 'RED'. If, for example, he shouted 'BLUE', the next person in line will know that there is an even number of blue hats. Knowing this, he must then proceed to count the number of blue hats ahead of him: if there is an odd number, his hat is definitely blue -- or, if there is an even number, his hat is definitely red. If his was blue, the next person in line will now know that there is now an odd number of blues...or, if his was red, he will know that there is still an even number of blues.

The last criminal's guess is based off the color of the criminal preceding him -- if it was blue and there was an even number left, his would be blue... et cetera and so forth, as calculated by the man.


SO: all but one is saved, and even the 'expendable' man has a 50/50 chance of survival.

I thought the prisoners could speak, but apparently they must write down their guess.. my bad.

To unholy's riddle, i've heard this before... the key is the fact that they try to save as many as possible. they come up with a plan first. since the hats are random, they have no sure way of knowing how many of each hat there is, so they draw straws to see who's in the back of the line... the back person then, the next day when the hats are placed, calls his hat as the color of hats in front of him that there are an even amount of... he, however, only has a 50% chance of living.

so, say it's this
BRBBBRBRRBBR
the back man sees only 6 black, so he calls out black. in this case he's right. but, if there were 6 and 6, he'd be dead.

after that, the next man hears that either the guy behind him died or lived, so he knew which were even and odd, even though they're the same now. counts the hats and sees that there's 6 blacks and 4 reds. they guy behind him called black, so he knows there was an odd amount of reds, so he calls red and lives.

the next guy sees 4 reds and 5 blacks. he knows the back man saw an even number of blacks and got it right, so, by process of elimination, realizes he's black. the next guy, only sees 4 blacks and 4 reds, and since it was even knows he should see and even number of blacks if he's black, and an odd number of reds if he's reds, so he knows he's blacks...

and so on and so forth. thats a tough one unholy...

And to zany, the closest answer i got is dr lesson, and i think it should be both of these puzzles. it also doesn't quite rhyme... puzzles and riddles dont rhyme. rhyme goes by the last syllable, which in ri-ddles is the ddles and in pu-zzles is the zzles.



Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jul 7 2009, 4:11 am by ShredderIV.

Shredder where did you get the dr from? The answer was just lesson.

o nvm misread and interpreted the first two lines... they basically arent necissary...

Wrong.. It is completely random.

The executor yells out to everyone what color you chose...
and it's Red or Black.. not blue..

But other than that.. wtf mate.. have u heard of this before??? That's right...
Zany is fail.
Shredder is also correct.. (same as what Jamal said)

Good stuff

NEXT RIDDLE GOGOGO

A SEN'ner -- UnholyUrine, let's say -- is tied to a piece of rope 15 feet in length. 30 feet away from him lies sustenance -- food. Although he is tied to this rope, he is able to eat the sustenance. How is this possible?

NOTE: There are no usable objects around him.

the rope's other end is loose.

A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for some water. Instead, the bartender pulls out a gun and puts it up to the side of the man's head. The man smiles, says thank you, and leaves. Why?

It was a water gun?

He also gave him a glass of water while holding a gun up to his head.

EDIT: Wait, I heard this before. He had the hiccups, and scaring him cured it.

The man had the hiccups. He wanted the water to get rid of them. The bartender pulled out the gun to scare away the hiccups, which worked.

Someone else post a riddle. P.S. I posted this before your edit, HaZ.