11/26 http://www.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU/~ilyas/problems/blue_eyes_suicide
the king is not a citizen and is allowed to discuss appearances right?
\_ The king is not a citizen, and he doesn't do anything except make
the initial announcement.
\_ is it legal for a citizen to tell another citizen that s/he should
commit suicide? If so, and assuming that each person can only ask
another person each day, then we have a lower limit of (2^28)/2
\_ Yes. It is legal for a citizen to tell another citizen just
about anything. First Amendment.
\_Wow, that's a pretty damn large country. Try 28.
\_ assuming two blue-eyed ask each other the question "should I
commit suicide", you'll always have one that is alive who
doesn't know if he is blue-eyed or not, and will have to ask
another person. Think like a binary tree. So assume the tree
height is 28, then you have 2^28, no???
\_ No, that is an indirect way of saying "You have blue eyes."
\_ crappy logic. remember everyone in the country can talk
to everyone else in one day
\_ The logic is, if there's only one person with blue eyes,
he'll see everyone else, realize he must have blue eyes,
and kill himself. If there are two people with blue eyes,
they'll each see one person with blue eyes, then the second
day, when they realize the other person didn't commit
suicide, they figure out that there must be two people with
blue eyes, so they must have blue eyes, so they commit
suicide. Etc. n=28. It's a stupid problem. -tom
\_ But why do they wait one day? Doesn't the king say
you are supposed to kill yourself immediately?
\_ they don't know until they've seen everyone else.
they see everyone else once a day. Like I said,
it's a stupid problem. -tom
\_ "when they realize the other person didn't commit
suicide, they figure out that there must be two people
with blue eyes, so they must have blue eyes"... I don't
follow this logic. Wouldn't a person with brown eyes
think the exact same thing, leading to false suicides?
I guess what I'm wondering about is how would the first
blue eyed person know to commit suicide.
\_ No. Assume he sees everyone else in town each day
and knows exactly the number of people with brown
eyes and blue eyes, except himself, and has the
ability to deduce how many should be dead after
the Nth day.
\_ The fun part is the 29th day where everyone commits
suicide because they haven't seen anyone with blue
eyes all day long.
\_ funny, but wrong.
\_ why is it wrong? on the 29th day how do
people know that all the blue eyed people are
dead?
\_ day 28: you see 28 blue-eyed people, who kill
themselves later that day.
day 29: you don't see any blue-eyed people. all
your blue-eyed friends are found dead.
this means you aren't blue-eyed.
\_ This is old. This exact same "problem" has been around for
decades that I know of and maybe longer. The names change but
the math stays the same. Like tom said, it's a stupid problem.
\_ No, I think it's stupid because it's linked off of ilyas'
web page. It must have gotten some of his stupidity by osmosis
or something. -- ilyas
\_ fizban needs bat guano.
\_ that's the name of the fictional game Kirk comes up with
TOS episode "A piece of the action"
\_ Do you want points for that? |
http://csua.com/feed/