Riddle 4: The black and white hats



The Black and White Hats 




Another classic and fantastic puzzle ...

"Three experts in logic gentlemen decided to play a strange game with five hats very similar to each other except for their color, three were black and two white. The knights  were placed in a line blindfolded, and each  got a hat chosen randomly. Then, without knowing what color was the hat he wore, the blindfold was removed.  The game was that during his turn had to guess  the color of hat they were wearing,  knowing that the game would end at the time which one of them chanced the color of your hat. The answers had to say  in a low voice so that other players could not hear it .  The first shift was the gentleman who was at the end of the row and could see the hats of the two gentlemen before him. He said one color and failed. He followed the shift of the second gentleman, who could see the first gentleman hat but not the third, who was behind him. He said one color and failed. Finally, having not successful the other players, it was the turn of the first gentleman, he could not see any hat. And then he xclamó:  « I know what color my hat! " . He said one color and hit. Why was he so sure the color of your hat ?. What was it ? ".



SOLUTION:

The puzzles are excellent tools to develop and enhance our ability to combine and coordinate multiple intellectual faculties. This conundrum is a great example of this. 

First we think of what he saw and how he reasoned the gentleman who was at the end of the row and could see the hats of the other two gentlemen. Since he failed the color of his hat deduce that could not infer what color his hat, then hats of the other two gentlemen could not both be white, since otherwise the color of your hat would necessarily black (remember initially had two white and three black hats). This information is immediately deduced that the hats of the first two knights or were: i) both black or ii) one the other black and white. Despite having this information and to see the color of the hat first gentleman, the second knight also could not figure out which was the color of his hat, so this rules out the possibility that the hat first gentleman is white, because of the Conversely, the second gentleman had deduced that his black hat should be according to the option ii). Then the first gentleman hat was  black. 



To return to the main page click  HERE .