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Hats and alligators (Posted on 2006-07-15) Difficulty: 4 of 5
A group of prisoners is under sentence of death and the warder decides to give them a test to gain their freedom. He tells them, "I will place a red or blue hat on each of your heads and then I'm going to arrange you in random order in a row so that no prisoner will be able to see his own hat but each one will see all the hats in front of him. Starting with the guy at the back each of you in turn must loudly say what color hat you think you have. Correct answers will go free, incorrect ones will be thrown to the alligators in the moat. I will give you time for a brief meeting before we start, so you can plan your optimum strategy."

What strategy can the prisoners - there are N of them - adopt to improve their odds above 50:50?

Hint: They need to agree on a strategy which allows each person to identify his/her own hat while simultaneously providing as much information as possible for all those in front.

No Solution Yet Submitted by JayDeeKay    
Rating: 4.4000 (5 votes)

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No Subject | Comment 17 of 19 |
I think it might work if everyone sais red by default, and blue if the person in front of them has a blue hat.  Then, if someone behind you sais blue, you would know that you were blue and say so, and the chain would restart ahead of you.  In this way, most blues and around 50% of reds would be right.

  Posted by thegnome54 on 2006-07-28 00:28:17
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