The secretary at a computers company is pregnant! It may have been one of the three partners' fault, or maybe someone else's. If a partner was the guilty party, he knows it... but he doesn't want the others to know it was him.

The three partners agree that they must know whether it was one of them who made the girl pregnant (thus possibly allowing a suit against the company) or if it was someone else.

How can they decide if one of them is to blame, without anybody having to accept being the father, if that was the case?

(Some notes: They might just write on papers either "I DID IT" or "I WASN'T IT", but the handwriting might give the guilty party away. Putting a white or black marble in an urn (white=innocent, black=guilty) might work, but someone could possibly see what color was being put in; also, if the guilty one went first, the second could peek inside and realize the answer. The optimum solution should not require much --or any-- extra equipment, and should "resist" inquisitive partners. And, of course, being all of them quite capable hackers, computers are out of the question!)

The three partners decide on a fourth person, a person of upstanding character and incorruptible integrity, whose discretion they all trust. After swearing this fourth person to secrecy, each of the three meets in private with him (or her), and reveals whether he is innocent or guilty. Each of these meetings takes place while the partner and the fourth person are standing in water up to their necks, to defeat any wiretapping attempts. This does not involve "extra equipment", just a swimming pool in the nearest motel, and swimming trunks. (I got that idea from the film "Traffic"). After the three meetings, ask this fourth person whether all three partners are innocent.
Edited on February 21, 2004, 12:19 pm

Posted by Penny on 2004-02-21 12:01:10