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The prisoners and the beans (Posted on 2005-11-27) Difficulty: 3 of 5
Five prisoners are going to take beans from a bag with 100 beans. They will do it one prisoner at a time, and only once each. No communication is allowed between them, but they can count the beans left in the bag. All prisoners who end with the largest and the smallest number of beans will die.

Who is most likely to survive?

Assume:
1. they are all smart people.
2. they will try to survive first and then try to kill more people.
3. they do not need to take out all the 100 beans.

See The Solution Submitted by pcbouhid    
Rating: 3.8750 (16 votes)

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Some Thoughts magical fruit | Comment 17 of 45 |

The first prisoner is smart enough to realize that no matter what he does, he is dead.  So his only alternative is to try to kill more people.  If he leaves any choices at all for those who follow him, there is a chance that someone will mess up and allow other prisoners to live.  So, the obvious solution is to eat all of the beans, leaving none for the remaining prisoners.  Prisoner #1, at least, gets a last meal.

 


  Posted by Mindy Rodriguez on 2005-12-01 00:19:24
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