After the weight lifting event, the announcer said “Either Holland was better than Italy, or Greece won gold.”

An Italian reporter heard that, and commented that even knowing his own country’s final place, he wasn’t able to deduce the other places.

Curiously, a Dutch reporter who knew Holland’s final place, and who hadn’t heard the other reporter, made exactly the same remark.

Which were the final places?

(In reply to Solution...Really by Isaac)

"Both reporters heard this, and if either one was in first, they'd know that Greece wasn't. And they wouldn't be able to say that they didn't know where either one was"

I disagree. If either Italy or Holland won gold, then one of the reporters would know Greece did not win gold - that I agree with. However, let's say Holland won gold. Since the Dutch reporter would know Greece did not win gold, he/she would know that the "Holland was better than Italy" part must be true. Well, Italy could win either Silver or Bronze and still satisfy this condition. So the Dutch reporter could still say "hmmm, I don't know what places the other two countries got."

So it is not necessarily true that Greece had to win Gold.
Edited on October 13, 2003, 3:22 pm

Posted by nikki on 2003-10-13 15:20:24