During lunch hour at school, a group of five boys from Miss Jones' home room visited a nearby lunch wagon. One of the five boys took a candy bar without paying for it. When the boys were questioned by the school principal, they made the following statements in respective order:
1. Rex: "Neither Earl nor I did it."
2. Jack: "It was Rex or Abe."
3. Abe: "Both Rex and Jack are liars."
4. Dan: "Abe's statement is not true; one of them is lying and the other is speaking the truth."
5. Earl: "What Dan said is wrong."
When Miss Jones was consulted, she said, "Three of these boys are knights, but two are liars." Assuming that Miss Jones is correct, can you determine who took the candy bar?
(In reply to
re(2): No solution! by kyju)
I don't think I said what I meant to say...
What I mean is, it depends on whether you take Dan's statement as one
statement or as two. If you look at it as one statement, then the
semicolon implies an "and," and only one of
the two parts of the statement has to be false for the entire statement
to be false. So the real question is does a semicolon make for a
different statement?
For example, say I have a marker that is thin and blue. I can think of
four different ways a compound statement could be written:
(a) This marker is thin and red.
(b) This marker is thin; this marker is red.
(c) This marker is thin. This marker is red.
(d) 1. This marker is thin.
2. This marker is red.
In which of these situations would I be considered a liar? It is clear
that in situation (d), I am making two statements--one true and one
false--and hence not a liar. It seems equally clear that situation (a)
would be considered one statement--and I would
be a liar since if only one part of an "and" statement is false, then
the statement is false. I guess situations (b) and (c) could be
debatable...and situation (b) is what we're dealing with in this
case...honestly, I'm not sure what the correct interpretation would be,
although I'm leaning towards (b) being one statement. As for (c), I
could go either way...does anyone have a definitive answer on this one?
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Posted by yocko
on 2005-02-10 06:45:14 |
re(3): No solution!
