You meet six men on a road side. The problem is that your wallet is mysteriously missing and you can't figure out if these men are truth tellers or not. So you ask a few questions and here are their answers:

Allan: "Fred stole it. Fred also hears quite well."

Barry: "Calvin is a liar. I did not steal it and I know Allan did not steal it."

Calvin: "Allan and Dwayne are both knights. Eddy stole it."

Dwayne: "Allan is a liar. I did not steal it."

Eddy: "Only 4 of us are knights. I did not steal it. I know Calvin did not steal it."

Fred: "I am deaf but read lips. Barry did not steal it."

Who stole the wallet?

P.S. You are sure that all of the men either lie or tell the truth. No one does both.

It has been shown by numerous people already that on the basis that the six men are either knights or liars then none of them stole the wallet.

In answer to the question of who stole the wallet, my guess is that it's the same evil pixies that take pairs of socks from my drawer and replace them with random odd socks that presumably come from the socks they've stolen from other people's drawers.

I think this problem is great because the answer is so unexpected. It made an amusing change to spend time solving it, for the answer to be 'who knows?. Nice one Jon :-)

Posted by fwaff on 2003-06-12 06:54:10