There's this town with two blacksmiths - one, a swordsmaker and the other, a shield maker. The swordsmaker's swords can slice through anything as a rule and the other guy's shields cannot be destroyed. Now they get cut up with each other for some reason and pit their wares against each other. What do you expect happens?

Perhaps I am reading the wording of the problem too closely, but ...

The problem states the shields 'cannot be destroyed.' This statement is unequivocal. However, the swords 'can slice through anything as a rule.' This condition is not absolute, it is just a general rule (and every rule has an exception!). Therefore I would expect the swords to fail to cleave through the shields.

Posted by Bryan on 2003-03-17 10:17:13