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Riddle

C

CarpeDeo

Golden Member
Here's a fun little riddle.

If you've figured it out or already know it, don't immediately post the answer! Let it run for awhile so it doesn't ruin it for anybody.

Took me about 20 min's to figure it out while driving from soCal to norCal.

*********************

A village of fifty (50) smurfs has been discovered by an oversized hungry giant. The giant is going to eat every smurf, but he gives them an opportunity to live. The following morning, the giant is going to line up all 50 smurfs facing the same direction, so that the 50th smurf can see every smurf in front of him, the 24th smurf can see the 23 smurfs in front of him, etc. He's going to randomly put either a black or white hat on each smurf. A smurf cannot see his own hat, but of course can see the hats of the smurfs in front of him. For a smurf to survive, he must call out the correct color of his hat. If he is right, he lives, if he's wrong, he dies. The 50th smurf (the one who can see the other 49) will start first by calling out either black or white, and then the next smurf will go, and so on. The night before the execution, the smurfs devise a plan so that the greatest number of smurfs will certainly live.

What strategy do they devise so that the greatest number of smurfs will live?
 
Well, I have an answer in which only one smurf will have a 50% chance of dying, and the rest will live. If it gets any better than that, let me know.

Ryan
 
😕

Move to a different smurf village?
Actually use their smurf magic to kill the giant?
Kill the giant at his sleep?
Hope that this ploy was preconceived by a TV show writer so that there's a deus ex machina at the very last second?
 
since there are 50 smurfs, can't they just all run in 50 different directions? the giant can only chase one 😛
j/k🙂
 
I know the answer to this, but I know it from a few years ago and it's a bit fuzzy. I'm too tired right now to think about it.
 
The only thing i could come up with after about 1 min of thinking was where I thought only 1 would die by having them call out the color of the hat infront of them. But then again, that wouldn't work either, so I have no clue

D:
 
Originally posted by: rgwalt
Well, I have an answer in which only one smurf will have a 50% chance of dying, and the rest will live. If it gets any better than that, let me know.

Ryan
Click to expand...

That's the way I see it.
Took more like 20 seconds then 20 minutes 😀
 
Pull the hats down far enough so they can see it. I mean hey, people in real life do that.

Edit: or wait for the sun to come out, and see how hot thier heads get as black absorbs heat and white reflects.
 
If they have a decent memory, you can get it so the only one who might die is the first person to guess and he has a 50/50 chance to survive as well. And no, you don't do this by identifying the color in front of you because the next person can't do that if they want to live.
 
Originally posted by: ergeorge
Originally posted by: rgwalt
Well, I have an answer in which only one smurf will have a 50% chance of dying, and the rest will live. If it gets any better than that, let me know.

Ryan
Click to expand...

That's the way I see it.
Took more like 20 seconds then 20 minutes 😀
Click to expand...

Oops nope ... re-reading it, each smurf only gets one chance to call out his hat color, so calling out the the color of the hat in front of him only saves the guy in front of him, and 50/50 chance of saving himself. So, if every other smurf (ie. 50, 48, 46, ...) calls out the color of the hat in front of him, and the other half (49, 47, 45, ...) calls out the color that he just heard from the guy behind him, then 50% will definitely be saved (the odd numbers) and roughly 50% of the even numbers will be saved by the chance that their hat is the same color as the guy ahead of them, so about 75% will be saved.

You can probably do better then that, but it's a first cut.

 
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