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The logician's favorite game (Posted on 2005-03-18) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A logician has a favorite game to play at parties. He shows a set of solidly colored stickers to all his logician friends. Each logician, without looking, puts a random sticker on his/her own back. Each logician can only see the stickers on other people's backs, and no one can look at the unused stickers. The logicians take turns announcing whether they can deduce their own color. The game ends when someone announces he/she can deduce his/her own color.

One time while playing this game, no one had yet ended the game even though everyone had a turn. Should they continue to take second turns, or should they just give up and start a new game? Prove that it is impossible for a game that hasn't ended after everyone's first turn to ever end, or provide a counterexample.

See The Solution Submitted by Tristan    
Rating: 3.2500 (4 votes)

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No Subject | Comment 26 of 29 |
Er, Consider the k player game with k >= 2 (not k > 2), ...

Also note that since the first player guesses if y=0, we need never worry that y<0.


  Posted by Eddy Karat on 2005-04-16 01:36:29
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