Brainteaser/Puzzle Corner (Part 4)

Protosscommander is it a snow pea or an orange/mandirine?

 

ok, i think i finally got it

label the 3 hydras h1, h2 and h3 by telling them "i don't know your names so i'm going to call you h1, you h2 and you h3 (while pointing at each hydra respectively) this will enable us to communicate" this is not a question and since the hydras can understand english, they'll understand who i'm referring to in questions coming up. (the labeling will clarify my explanations, instead of saying "this" hydra i could refer them by their label)

pick a random hydra and ask it: (with no loss of generality let choose h1 in this example)
question one: assuming Rory will answer the same as you, what would h2 answer to the question: "does hissing mean yes?"

if h1 answers by hissing then h3 is definitely not Rory, this is because:
- if h1 is Rory then h3 can't be Rory (duh)
- if h1 is Tommy then assume h3 is Rory, this means h2 is Lucas. we've been told by Tommy (who always tells the truth) that Lucas will answer the question "does hissing mean yes?" by hissing, since Lucas always lie, we can deduce the true answer of the question "does hissing mean yes?" is spitting (*)
however if hissing does indeed mean yes then the "true" answer of the question "does hissing mean yes?" should be hissing. if hissing means no, the answer of "does hissing mean yes?" is no, so the "true" answer is also hissing. we've reached a contradiction with (*) meaning the assumption that h3 is Rory must be false
- if h1 is Lucas then assume h3 is Rory, this means h2 is Tommy. we've been told by Lucas (who always lies) that Tommy will answer the question "does hissing mean yes?" by hissing, this is a lie so Tommy will answer by spitting since Tommy always tells the truth, the true answer is spitting, we reached the same point as the previous case - the “true†answer of the question "does hissing mean yes?" can’t be spitting because of the contradiction that would follow. Like before, the assumption that h3 is Rory must be false.

since h1 must be either Rory or Tommy or Lucas, and in all three cases h3 can’t be Rory, we can conclude if h1 answers question one by hissing then h3 is not Rory,

likewise if h1 answers by spitting then h2 is definitely not Rory:
- if h1 is Rory then h2 can't be Rory
- if h1 is Tommy then assume h2 is Rory, we've been told by Tommy (who always tells the truth) that Rory will answer the question "does hissing mean yes?" by spitting, since in the question we’ve told Tommy to assume Rory will answer the same as him, we are effectively asking Tommy to answer the question "does hissing mean yes?" according to itself , Tommy is ignoring what Rory will answer (it doesn’t know anyway since Rory is random) since Tommy always tells the truth, the true answer of the question "does hissing mean yes?" is spitting, again, we’ve reached the same contradiction. so h2 can’t be Rory.
(now the slightly complicated bit)
- if h1 is Lucas then assume h2 is Rory, we've been told by Lucas (who always lies) that according to its answer Rory will answer the question "does hissing mean yes?" by spitting. now this is a lie… so had Rory answered the same way as Lucas, the answer would have been hissing. so Lucas’s “true†answer is hissing, but Lucas always lie, so the “real true†answer is spitting. again, we’ve reached the paradoxical point that “true†answer of “does hissing mean yes?†is spitting. meaning the assumption of h2 is Rory must be false.

similar to the first case, we can conclude that if h1 answers question one by spitting then h2 is not Rory.

without loss of generality, assuming the answer to the question one was a hiss, from the reasoning above, we know that h3 is definitely not Rory, so we must ask h3 to answer question two this way we’ll avoid asking Rory, whose answer doesn’t help.

question two: "does hissing mean yes?"

- if h3 hisses then h3 is Tommy,
either hissing means yes then the answer to question two is yes(hissing) so Tommy is answering truthfully by hissing
or hissing means no then the answer is no(hissing) so Tommy is also answering truthfully by hissing

- if h3 spits then h3 is Lucas,
either hissing means yes then the answer is yes(hissing) so Lucas is lying by spitting.
or hissing means no then the answer is no(hissing) so Lucas is lying by spitting.

without loss of generality, assuming the answer to the question two was also a hiss, then we know h3 is definitely Tommy. now we just need to determine which of 1 and 2 is Rory and which is Lucas. we can ask h3 (Tommy) the same question as question one

question three: assuming Rory will answer the same as you, what would h2 answer to the question: "does hissing mean yes?"

- if h2 is Rory, then h3(Tommy) would truthfully hiss(yes) if hissing indeed means yes and truthfully hiss(no) hissing means no.
- if h2 is Lucas, then Tommy would truthfully relate Lucas’s answer and spit(no) if hissing means yes and spit(yes) if missing means no. knowing the identities of h3 and h2, h1 is determined by elimination.

the funniest thing is despite having asked three questions about whether “hissing†means “yes,†we still don’t know! as i pointed out before, it’s impossible determine the meaning of hiss/spit AND the identity of all 3 hydras with only 3 yes/no questions.

 

What the? , very nice post there bnechbreaker! :O and I'm just waiting for protosscommander to reply

 

Um yeah Isn't the answer to this just a strawberry? I guess i could be wrong but I mean really it seems like a stawberry, which I'm really surprised no one has said yet.

 

@ BnechbReaker - Great answer! I hope you're right.

 

@ BnechbReaker that is quite an impressive answer you got there and from what I read it seems right.

@Bizzaro if Bnech's answer is right than I would like to ask if you can keep your riddel open since you said there is more than one possible answer, you could lower your reward after each answer or just do what ever you see fit, but it's a really good riddle and i don't really want to see it end with just one answer if there is more than that.

 

Yeah Bizzaro should leave it open, just lower the price.

 

-ssjfox-
Rory's answer switches randomly for every question. Think about it like for every question you ask him, he flips an invisible coin. If it comes up heads, he answers by hissing. If it comes up tails, he answers by spitting.
So with this happening, you could ask him "Are you a Hydralisk?" twice in a row, and he could answer by hissing twice, spitting twice, or hissing and spitting once each.
Hope that helps, good luck!

-Quanta-
Definitely an interesting try, but unfortunately, BnechbReaker is right about it. Asking each Hydralisk about the other two can go two ways...
You can ask "Are one of the other two Lucas?", and which point Tommy would answer with whatever means yes, Lucas would answer with whatever means yes, and Rory would answer randomly. To make it one question, you have to have one answer, see?
Or, you could ask each Hydralisk about the other two individually. While the theory for your method works, it unfortunately wouldn't work in practice, because that amounts to six questions total, while the Hydralisks will only allow for three.
Very good try though, I like how you approached it.

-BnechbReaker-
Haha yes, it seems like this is always the first solution people get. This is the first solution that I stumbled across while trying to solve this for my father, and I was pretty darn excited when I had it written down on paper. Unfortunately, when I presented it to him, he told me that although the questions worked to achieve my ultimate goal, it still wasn't right.
Why? Because, using the names from my riddle, Rory is not specifically "random". If he were truly random, then he would answer by making random clicking noise and twitching if he felt like it. But rather, he answers by randomly switching between being a truth-teller and being a liar. Such as it is, there are times when Rory is a truth-teller, and times when Rory is a liar. When he is a liar, you can no more ask Tommy to assume he would answer the same as he would than you could ask Tommy to assume that Lucas would answer the same.
The reason for this, and why the "assume" clause can't be allowed in this riddle, is because it essentially alters the rules of the game. If I allow it to be used, then what's to stop people from forming questions like "Assuming *hiss* means yes..." See what I mean?

However, that doesn't take away from the fact that you still answered it first, with an incredibly clever answer. So to you, I award 280 minerals and a PowerUp. (It would have been 300, but then I would have had to go to the bank. :good

The riddle is still open, with another award hitting 300 minerals and a PowerUp. Good luck, and no modifying truths!

BnechbReaker, though the questions were iffy, the general method of attack was bang on. I encourage you to take the same methodology and try to find different questions that achieve the same aims. You could end up with an end reward greater than what I originally intended!

 

just to summarize all the different possibilities:

ask h1 Q1:
=> if h1 hisses ask h3 Q2, then ask h3 Q3
-> if h3 hisses to Q2 and hisses to Q3 then h1=Lucas, h2=Rory, h3=Tommy
-> if h3 hisses to Q2 and spits to Q3 then h1=Rory, h2=Lucas, h3=Tommy
-> if h3 spits to Q2 and hisses to Q3 then h1=Tommy, h2=Rory, h3=Lucas
-> if h3 spits to Q2 and spits to Q3 then h1=Rory, h2=Tommy, h3=Lucas

=> if h1 spits ask h2 Q2, then ask h2 a modified version of Q3 - assuming Rory will answer as you do, what will h1 answer to the question: “does hissing mean yes?â€
-> if h2 hisses to Q2 and hisses to Q3 then h1=Rory, h2=Tommy, h3=Lucas
-> if h2 hisses to Q2 and spits to Q3 then h1=Lucas, h2=Tommy, h3=Rory
-> if h2 spits to Q2 and hisses to Q3 then h1=Rory, h2=Lucas, h3=Tommy
-> if h2 spits to Q2 and spits to Q3 then h1=Tommy, h2=Lucas, h3=Rory

EDIT: seems like this post is too late

 

I said that at the top of page 26. I saw no point to redo the work that paragon did, but one at 11:55 never made sense, so I said 10.

 

I think bnechreaker got it right....

 

One quick question for Bizzaro, so would the other two know at any given moment if Rory were in truth-teller mode or liar-mode?

 

Quanta I'll go ahead and answer that for you becuase I'm pretty sure Bizzaro already answered that and he said no they wouldn't know. Please note though that I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure he said they wouldn't know and logically they couldn't know any way.

 

its been too long to not post riddles so here is some
_________________________________________________
#1 for 200 minerals
You hear it speak, for it has a hard tongue. But it cannot breathe, for it has not a lung.
What is it?
_________________________________________________
#2 for 250
You can spin, wheel and twist, but this thing can turn without moving.
What is it?
_________________________________________________
#3 for 300
Never resting, never still.
Moving silently from hill to hill.
It does not walk, run or trot,
All is cool where it is not.
What is it?
_________________________________________________
#4 for 400
How far can a dog run into the woods?

 

@tweak - 2) dizziness? 3)cloud?

 

technically dude cloud makes things cool, not NOT cool. So i suppose my guess for #3 is the sun / sunlight

Also ont he right track but #2 is vertigo.

#1 is uhm, television? radio? microphone?

 

#4 a dog can run half way into the woods (after that the dog is running out of it)

 

1. a river?
2. the sun?
3. sun?
4. yeah, halfway...

 

Ya i've heard 4 before

#3 well if you mean to use the word turn as to mean rotate or revolve or something, it has to be moving so you can't be using that meaning of the word turn.

My guess is food.  Food can turn bad if you just leave it sitting.

Edit: also for #2, it couldn't be the sun because the sun rests when it sets. I know that is not litterally true but in the classic sense a riddle would use it would probably be why it couldn't be sun.

 

Yeah Quanta is right. nice job.