A knight remembers a banquet that he had:

"Oh, that was a really nice banquet; all the liars and the knights of the kingdom were there, even the village fool. We all ate and drank and at the end of it the king asked each one of us to make a statement about someone else, I mean, to say if he is a liar or a knight. finaly, one statement was said about each one of us, and every one made the same statement except for the village fool who made a different statement. By the way, can you tell me how many people were in the banquet?"

"No", you say, "but I can tell you something else about the NUMBER of people that were in the banquet."

What can you tell? What statement did each one of the participants make?

I can see room for confusion, but for me, it's spelled out in the text.  "all the liars and the knights of the kingdom were there, even the village fool" -- to me this means "All of them were there, including the village fool", instead of "the village fool was there also"

As for the second limitation, "the king asked each one of us to make a statement about someone else, I mean, to say if he is a liar or a knight." -- from this it sounds like "each one" implies everyone except the king -- thus including the village fool.


The text isn't as clear as it should have been, but looking backward, it helps to consider what author might have meant. If the village fool is utterly unimportant, (he is not necessarily a liar or knight, or his statement could be anything) the text would more likely not include the fool altogether and say "One statement was said about everyone except one person, and each of these statements was the same."

Posted by Gamer on 2007-02-11 14:46:09