Logic Puzzle Day 1995 PRIZE EDITION
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by Commius
Hola chicos, it’s Day 1995 and time for a PRIZE EDITION!!!! First, the answer to yesterday’s puzzle:
tl;dr: 1 + 1/2pi miles from the South Pole.
Official Answer: “Is there any point on the globe, besides the North Pole, from which you could walk a mile south, a mile east, and a mile north and find yourself back at the starting point? Yes indeed; not just one point but an infinite number of them! You could start from any point on a circle drawn around the South Pole at a distance slightly more than 1 + 1/2pi miles (about 1.16 miles) from the Pole--the distance is ‘slightly more’ to take into account the curvature of the earth. After walking a mile south, your next walk of one mile east will take you on a complete circle around the Pole, and the walk one mile north from there will then return you to the starting point. Thus your starting point could be any one of the infinite number of points on the circle with a radius of about 1.16 miles from the South Pole. But this is not all. You could also start at points closer to the Pole, so that the walk east would carry you just twice around the Pole, or three times, and so on.”
*** A Note from Commius *** I was thinking along the lines of Olivermellors in the comment section; that a mountain could possibly could be used to satisfy the conditions. I guess the jury is out on that one.
Today is my RL birthday so in celebration I am giving away 20 Q7 tanks to first to answer the following puzzle correctly with supporting logic in a message to me. If I suspect cheating the prize will not be awarded to that person, this is supposed to be an exercise in thinking and we shall honor those who do it faithfully. Please do not post googled answers in the comment section, thank you! As usual, I would be highly appreciative of those who shout the link of this article for votes!
The Fork in the Road
“Here’s a recent twist on an old type of logic puzzle. A logician vacationing in the South Seas finds himself on an island inhabited by two proverbial tribes of liars and truth-tellers. Members of one tribe always tell the truth, members of the other always lie. He comes to a fork in a road and has to ask a native bystander which branch he should take to reach a village. He has no way of telling whether the native is a truth-teller or a liar. The logician thinks for a moment, then asks one question only. From the reply he knows which road to take. What question does he ask?”
Sorry, if I take some time to get back to messages, busy week with final exams and birthday festivities.
😃
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Comments
inb4peasants
v&s
LOL... that is an old one. I have one word for everyone...
LABYRINTH.
A mountain would not work, unless a point on that mountain is one of the aforementioned spots. The "due north/south" directions do not take elevation into account.
the paradox that drove Russell wild and which Godel's incompleteness theorem showed could not be solved without "more" than one question/reply.
You must therefore have "more": you must determine who is the liar without a question. You can do this, for instance, by using a command instead of a question: "tell me the name of my second daughter". The truthteller will say he doesn't know; the liar will offer a name.
Now that you know who is telling the truth you may ask your one question and know if the answer is truthful.
In the event the puzzle permits the logician to make only one utterance, he would combine into somthing like
"Can you kindly tell me my daughter's name and the way to the village?"
"What would the other guy say the correct path is?"
And choose the opposite.
+v from BlueRose 🙂
+v from Daj Tanka ™