The Firing Squad Riddle
Image by TravelFurther
I stumbled across the Firing Squad Riddle a few months ago. Honestly, I eventually gave up and looked at the answer before figuring it out. I wish I had spent more time on the riddle, but I figured that it was one of those "trick" riddles.
You can find this riddle all over the internet, but TravelFurther created the helpful graphic you see above.
The Firing Squad Riddle
The graphic above depicts four men, buried up to their necks, about to get shot by a firing squad. We'll call them A, B, C, and D, appropriately.
A is facing the wall from the left and the other 3 (B, C, D) are facing the wall from the right. They all know they are 3 on one side and 1 on the other. They are also lined up in a straight line and cannot see around or through the wall.
They were blindfolded when their hats were placed on their heads, so they do not know what color hat they are wearing. They do know, however, that there are four men altogether and that two of them are wearing a white hat and two a black one.
In order to for all of them to avoid being shot, one of them must call out to the executioner the color of THEIR hat. If they get it wrong, they will all be shot. They are not allowed to talk to each other, nor is there any other form of communiciation. They have 5 minutes to figure it out.
After two minutes of silence, one of them calls out his own hat color with certainty. Which one of the four calls out his color, and how can he be certain?
As I mentioned above, this is not a "trick" riddle. They cannot move. They are buried in a straight line. A & B can only see their respective views of the wall, C can see B, and D can see B & C.
In case it crosses your mind, I'll say it again: This is not a trick riddle. The wall does not have a hole in it, it's not made of glass or another transparent or translucent material, and it's not a mirrored wall.
Think hard. If you can't figure it out right now, keep it in the back of your mind and work on it over the course of a day. Bookmark this page to come back and verify the answer once you figure it out or once you give up.
To see the answer, head over to TravelFurther's Firing Squad Riddle solution page.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 19:15 by Novac and is filed under All, Entertaining, Fun, Games, Mind-Boggling.
You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
Related posts: