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The party (Posted on 2002-06-20) Difficulty: 4 of 5
Alice and Bill threw a party and invited four other couples. As each couple arrived there were greetings, including handshakes.

Later in the evening, Bill asked everyone, including Alice how many people they shook hand with. Every answer was different. No one shook hands with his or her own partner.

How many hands did Alice shake?

See The Solution Submitted by TomM    
Rating: 3.6923 (13 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
re: Huh? (re: hmm.). | Comment 4 of 16 |
(In reply to Huh? (re: hmm.). by TomM)

(couldnt post this before)

similar choice of transitions for the rest of the arrivals yields
{B, 1, 2, 0} * {4, 0} = {B, 2, 3, 1, 4, 0} (Alice = 2)
{B, 2, 3, 1, 4, 0} * {6, 0} = {B, 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 6, 0} (Alice = 3)
{B, 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 6, 0} *{8, 0} = {B, 4, 5, 3, 6, 2, 7, 1, 8, 0} (ALICE = 4)

the final state {B, 4, 5, 3, 6, 2, 7, 1, 8, 0} represents "each
person answered differently", and Alice=4.

hopefully this explains it better? if not let me know
  Posted by Cheradenine on 2002-06-20 04:39:09

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