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 by fwaff)
I Agree with fwaff for the 'xor' case (either ... or, but not both), but not for the other case. If both can be true, the announcer leaves us with 4 possibilities:
GIH
HGI
HIG
GHI
The Italian reporter's comment then adds no information at all, since there are two possibilities of Italy being silver, and two of Italy's being bronze, i.e., in any case he could not have deduced all the positions.
The Dutch reporter's comments leave us with HGI or HIG, with no way to deduce the right answer.
I therefore deduce that 'xor' was intended! So the solution is HIG (Holland gold, Italy silver, Greece bronze).
Edited on October 13, 2003, 11:10 am
re: Solution
