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?

(In reply to hmm.. by Cheradenine)

Two questions here:

What, exactly, are you doing in these "state machine" steps?

How did you distinguish Alice's answer specifically from the other eight?

Your method may be totally valid, but without my being able to understand it, it looks like you just chose the "4" because it occurs as the median answer.

Posted by TomM on 2002-06-20 03:55:37