There is a riddle, you see. I knew the answer, and I knew how to arrive at the answer, and yet even after roping in two other people it still took the guts of half an hour and at least three beermats to reverse engineer the riddle itself. So you are going to read it and you are going to enjoy it.
Three people are standing in a line, facing forward. Like so: A -> B -> C ->. Person A can see Person B and Person C. Person B can see Person C. Person C is kind of staring off into space, perhaps pondering the merits of dogs vs. cats as household pets, or idly doing some mental arithmetic.1
Now then: hats. Each of them is wearing a hat, which has been distributed from a pool of two white hats and three black hats. They don’t know what hat they’ve been given, although of course they can see the hats of those in front of them. They are asked to say, without guessing, what colour hat they’re wearing.
A says nothing. B says nothing. C says, “I know what colour hat I’m wearing.”
What colour hat does he have, and how does he know?
- They all do this. They’re very logical people, you understand, and that’s how they get their jollies. Even that bit about the dogs and cats is just a mental exercise. Do you think Person C would ever actually want to have a pet? You fool. [↩]
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