The secretary at a computers company is pregnant! It may have been one of the three partners' fault, or maybe someone else's. If a partner was the guilty party, he knows it... but he doesn't want the others to know it was him.
The three partners agree that they must know whether it was one of them who made the girl pregnant (thus possibly allowing a suit against the company) or if it was someone else.
How can they decide if one of them is to blame, without anybody having to accept being the father, if that was the case?
(Some notes: They might just write on papers either "I DID IT" or "I WASN'T IT", but the handwriting might give the guilty party away. Putting a white or black marble in an urn (white=innocent, black=guilty) might work, but someone could possibly see what color was being put in; also, if the guilty one went first, the second could peek inside and realize the answer. The optimum solution should not require much --or any-- extra equipment, and should "resist" inquisitive partners. And, of course, being all of them quite capable hackers, computers are out of the question!)
We seem to have several suggestions of a similar nature, adding something on, be it a number on a calculator, whisering, marbles in an urn, etc. The only question is how to prevent 'bugging'. I would suggest something like this (other variations obviously possible):
Have a trusted fourth person put several black marbles in an urn, counting exactly how many. Each partner adds a handful of identical marbles, say 5 if he's guilty, 6 if he's innocent, or whatever. Count out the marbles at the end, after being told how many you started with. At a glance, no one could count the marbles that were already in there, so that problem is solved, and peeking to see if someone is adding 5 or 6 marbles is also difficult. They could even turn out the light when someone is adding his marbles etc.
Edited on February 23, 2004, 12:42 pm
summary, of sorts
