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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hplabsb!minsky
From: minsky@hplabsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Dot Town, U.S.A.
Message-ID: <2479@hplabsb.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-Aug-84 14:08:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsb.2479
Posted: Sun Aug 26 14:08:10 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Aug-84 00:42:43 EDT
Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA
Lines: 32

Here is a neat little puzzle I heard late last night. 
Thanks to Tom Mrowka who told it so well.

Somewhere in the Great Midwest there is a sleepy little town known
as Dot Town, U.S.A.  The inhabitants of this town are just like
you and me, except that they have the following four properties:

1) Each inhabitant has a dot on the back of their neck. Each dot is
   either blue or red.  No one can see their own dot.

2) The inhabitants are perfectly logical, except for property 3.

3) Whenever any inhabitant discovers the color of their dot, he/she
   commits suicide on that evening.

4) Everyone turns out on the Town Square every day at noon, to socialize
   and look at each other's dots.

Life in this little town proceeds as usual until one day at noon a
Stranger drives through, and looking around him in the Square,
exclaims in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear: "Wow! At
least one of you people has a blue dot on the back of their neck!"
Having spoken, he roars off in a cloud of dust and disappears forever,
leaving the good people of Dot Town (U.S.A.) to ponder his words.

The question is: what happens?


Cheers,
Yair Minsky
..!hplabs!minsky (but not for long)