top button
Flag Notify
    Connect to us
      Site Registration

Site Registration

What strategy could they use to ensure they will go free?

+1 vote
773 views

There is a prison with 100 prisoners, each in separate cells with no form of contact. There is an area in the prison with a single light bulb in it. Each day, the warden picks one of the prisoners at random, even if they have been picked before, and takes them out to the lobby. The prisoner will have the choice to flip the switch if they want. The light bulb starts in the Switched off position.

When a prisoner is taken into the area with the light bulb, he can say "Every prisoner has been brought to the light bulb." If this is true all prisoners will go free. However, if a prisoner chooses to say this and it's wrong, all the prisoners will be executed. So a prisoner should only say this if he knows it is true for sure.

Before the first day of this process begins, all the prisoners are allowed to get together to discuss a strategy to eventually save themselves.

What strategy could they use to ensure they will go free?

posted Oct 10, 2014 by Vishal

Looking for solution? Promote on:
Facebook Share Button Twitter Share Button LinkedIn Share Button




Similar Puzzles
0 votes
What method can they use to ensure they all go free?

A prison has 23 prisoners in 23 different cells. The prisoners have no way to communicate with each other in any way from their cells. There is another room, the rec room, that has two switches on the wall (A and B). The switches have on and off positions but they start in an unknown position.

Prisoners are randomly taken to and from the rec room one at a time. They must change the position of only one of the two switches each time they go to the room. At any point a prisoner can yell out, "Every prisoner has been here!" If the prisoner is correct that all of the prisoners have visited the rec room, then they all go free. If they aren't correct then they are all executed.

Before they start they are given one planning session during which they can discuss a method to win the game.
What method can they use to ensure they all go free?

0 votes
What Is the One Question That Will Ensure Madan’ Passage To Heaven?

Madan is killed in a road accident and he finds himself in front of two identical doors.

One leads to heaven and one leads to hell.

There are identical gatekeepers at each door.

One gatekeeper can only tell the truth, whereas the other can only tell lies.

Only the gatekeepers themselves know who does or does not lie.

Madan can ask only one question to only one of the gatekeepers.

What Is the One Question That Will Ensure Madan’ Passage To Heaven?

0 votes
What will be your strategy to escape from the island safely?

You are stuck on an island where you have nothing. You find four pieces of paper somewhere on the island.

What will be your strategy to escape from the island safely?

PS: No other resource is available to you on the island, neither can you build anything.

0 votes
Suggest a strategy such that player A will always win, no matter how player B will play?

Suppose two player, player A and player B have the infinite number of coins. Now they are sitting near a perfectly round table and going to play a game. The game is, in each turn, a player will put one coin anywhere on the table (not on the top of coin already placed on the table, but on the surface of the table). And the player who places the last coin on the table will win the game. Given player A will always move first. Suggest a strategy such that player A will always win, no matter how player B will play?

+1 vote
Strategy that yields the largest amount of mango's to be delivered to B.

Distance between the towns A and B is 1000 miles. There is 3000 mango's in A, and the mango's have to be delivered to B. The available car can take 1000 apples at most. The car driver has developed an addiction to mango: when he has mango aboard he eats 1 mango with each mile made. Figure out the strategy that yields the largest amount of mango's to be delivered to B.

...