Three readers responded with answers to last week's puzzle, with only the last response—coming from either my dad or someone else going by the name Grubby
—getting it right. The answer was: you needed to flip only the E and 7 cards.
Today we have another puzzle, again courtesy of Keith Devlin and his book The Math Gene. For this puzzle the same rule goes: the first one to post the correct answer gets recognition as a genius puzzle-solver.
So here it is:
You are in charge of a party where there are young people. Some are drinking alcohol, others soft drinks. Some are old enough to drink alcohol legally, others are under age. You, as the organizer, are responsible for ensuring that the drinking laws are not broken, so you have asked each person to put his or her photo ID on the table. At one table are four young people who may or may not be over the legal drinking age. One person has a beer, another a Coke, but their IDs happen to be face down so you can't see their ages. You can, however, see the IDs of the other two people. One is under the drinking age, the other is above it. Unfortunately, you are not sure if they are drinking 7-Up or vodka and tonic. Which IDs and/or drinks do you need to check to make sure that no one is breaking the law?
Don't be bashful, y'all.
4 comments:
I will assume the puzzle applies only to the four at the table.
drinker A with beer and face down ID: CHECK ID
drinker B with coke and face down ID: OK
drinker C with unknown drink and over age: OK
drinker D with unknown drink and under age: CHECK DRINK
OhOh. This looks too easy. But its my shot, so to speak.
I agree with Grubby, but I was too bashful to post such an obviously easy answer. There must be some trick!
Take a sip of drinker B's Coca-Cola, then do a quick stare into the eyes of drinker A and drinker D as if to convey that you KNOW, but you're being cool about it. Yeah, maybe you'll get arrested, but probably not and isn't it always cool to be thought of as cool?
Everyone— Thanks for your answers! And good job!
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