Shown above are four monkeys buried up to their necks in the ground. They cannot move, so can only look forwards. Between A and B is a brick wall which cannot be seen through. They know that between them there are four hats � two are wearing a fez and two are wearing Scottish tartan hats, but they do not know which they have on.
In order to avoid being shot one of them must call out to the executioner the type of hat they are wearing. If they get it wrong, everyone will be shot. They are not allowed to talk to each other and have ten minutes to fathom it out.
After one minute one of the monkeys calls out the type of hat he has on.
Which one of them calls out?
Why is he 100% certain which hat he is wearing?
This is not a trick question. There are no outside influences or other ways of communicating. They cannot move and are buried in a straight line. A and B can only see their respective sides of the brick wall, C can see B, and D can see B and C. Furthermore, the answer has nothing to do with the type of hat they have on.
3 Heads &
5 Hats
In a small village in the middle of nowhere, three
innocent prisoners are sitting in a jail. One day, the cruel jailer
takes them out and places them in a line on three chairs, in such a way
that man C can see both man A and man B, man B
can see only man A, and man A can see none of the other men.
The jailer shows them 5 hats, 2 of which are black and 3 of which are white.
After this, he blindfolds the men, places one hat on each of their heads,
and removes the blindfolds again. The jailer tells his three prisoners that
if one of them is able to determine the color of his hat within one minute,
all of them are released. Otherwise, they will all be shot. None of the
prisoners can see his own hat, and all are intelligent. After 59 seconds,
man A shouts out the (correct) color of his hat!
The Question:
What is the color of man A's hat, and how does he know?