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The way to Normalville (Posted on 2012-10-05) Difficulty: 3 of 5
In Normalville, every inhabitant is either a knight, a liar, or a normal. Knights always tell the truth. Liars always lie. Normals tell the truth and lie completely at random. You are going to Normalville when you see a fork in the road. There are two ways to go. One of them leads to Normalville. You see three inhabitants by the fork, A, B, and C. You know that only one of them is a normal, but you are not sure who it is. In two "yes" or "no" questions, how do you find the way to Normalville? (Each question can only be addressed to one person, but it can be a different person for each question.)

See The Solution Submitted by Math Man    
Rating: 3.7500 (4 votes)

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Some Thoughts no cigar | Comment 1 of 13

The way the puzzle is worded there is IMHO no solution.

Whatever question is applied to a "normal" gets a random answer , therefore it cannot provide any sensible input toward a reasonable decision.

If, on the other hand, 1st question like  "is 1+1 equal to 2?" or "are you alive?" is addressed to all the three inhabitants, then we know that the "minority answer " we've got from either knight or liar and the rest is easy ... we  address this K/L witht a question like " would the opposite of you approve the right side of the fork to reach Nville?" or similar - forcing an answer, which is independent of the speaker as long as he is coherent.

 


  Posted by Ady TZIDON on 2012-10-06 05:12:36
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