Discover Smith Mountain Lake
SUMMER 2015
24
PROBLEM:
Edited by Gerald Muus
As Assistant Editor of Discover Smith
Mountain Lake, “Gremmie” loves to get mail.
Here she is, busy at work, looking over the
entries in our puzzle competition.
If you care to drop her a line, send it to:
Gremlin the Wonder Cat
Assistant Editor
Discover Smith Mountain Lake Magazine
40 Village Springs Dr.
Suite 25
Hardy, VA 24101
Or via e-mail at:
Solution:
Our winner, Jerry McAfee, offered a simple solution:
The first man says “I have a picture of an egg on my back”.
There are only 3 possible arrangements of the pictures with a chicken on the first
man. These are (listed front to back):
1. chicken chicken egg
2. chicken egg chicken
3. chicken egg egg
I assume that the middle man can only see the shirt in front of him and the
back man can see the two shirts in front of him.
Option 1 is eliminated because the back man would see two chickens and
know that he has to have an egg on his back but he is silent.
Options 2 and 3 are eliminated because the middle man would see a
chicken and know that he has to have an egg on his back but he also is
silent.The middle man has already discarded Option 1 because of the
silence of the back man.
Because of the silence of the middle and back man, the front man knows
that he cannot have a chicken on his back and therefore must have an
egg.
The evil genius, Dr. Maybe, captured three top CIA
operatives, all accomplished critical thinkers, and
gave them a puzzle. If they solved it, they would go
free.
If they failed to solve it, all three would feed to the
sharks in his giant aquarium.
“You will no doubt recognize the paradoxical puzzle,
which came first: the chicken, or the egg,” Dr. Maybe
wheezed. “Those are the two possible answers to
my little puzzle.”
He then produced five pictures, two of a chicken, and
the other three, of an egg.
“I will put one of these pictures on each one of your
backs.”
Lining them up single file, he blindfolded them.Then
he chose three of the five pictures, and pinned one
to the back of each man’s shirt.
“Now, when I remove your blindfolds, one of
you must tell me which picture is on his back. If
he answers incorrectly, you all die. If he answers
correctly, all will go free.”
He removed the blindfolds. For a long time there
was silence. Finally, the first man in line spoke, and
a sputtering Dr. Maybe set them all free.
What did he say?
Gremmie’s
Pages
LAST ISSUE’S BRAIN TEASER:
25
