Behold the solution to The Wright Challenge: Crouching Puzzle, Hidden Answer #6. If you forgot the actual question, click here to see it again

There were several correct solutions, including one where the question "Is 2+2=4?" had to be asked. One thing that some people discussed was what would happen if the liar was asked how Schlumpf would respond to a given question. The answer is, of course "I don't know" but the liar would lie. Would he say "I know, but won't tell you?" or would he make up an answer? Melissa P pointed out that he might say, "I like strawberries." The following solution finesses the question nicely:

Ask all three: "If I were to ask you tomorrow which hotel has the pool, what would you say?" Both the truth teller and the liar will tell you the correct hotel, the truth-teller because of honest, the liar because of being tricked into a double-negative. And Schlumpf? Who cares what he says? He can single, double, triple negative himself, say he doesn't know, or explode. The fact is, that two of the three answers will be the right one, and just go by the majority.This solution also gets around the questions like "Do they know each other?"

Another solution: Ask the first person, "Which of the other two has the higher probability of telling me the truth?" Then ask the other person, "If I were to ask you tomorrow which hotel has the pool, what would you say?" Both the truth-teller and the liar will point to Schlumpf, and so by picking the other one, you get a correct answer. Schlumpf would point to someone at random, but it doesn't matter, the second question will still work. This solution gives you an answer in TWO questions. So you are free to use the THIRD question to do with as you will.

The Boyer Valley Braniacs noticed that your old friend Doctor E forgot to specify that it had to be a yes or no question. So they suggest that you ask each for the phone number of the hotel with a pool. Call the numbers, and then just ask the desk clerk if they have a pool.

The most popular answer to the other question was queue. Delete the last four letters, and it is pronounced q. The creative aforementioned Braniacs noted that if you delete the last four letters from the alphabet the word is still pronounced alphabet. I don't know, that's kind of cheating... it isn't still an alphabet without the w, x, y and z. And we must not forget Peter B's wonderful solution: nada. Delete the last four letters and how do you pronounce what is left?

Web Page design: Doug Shaw