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From: ice@trwrba.UUCP (Douglas L. Ice)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: another puzzle
Message-ID: <1824@trwrba.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 14:27:31 EST
Article-I.D.: trwrba.1824
Posted: Wed Feb 12 14:27:31 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 06:45:51 EST
Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 42

Summary:Red&Black hats (NON-ROT SPOILER!!!) 
Expires: 
References: <1645@hound.UUCP>
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Reply-To: ice@trwrba.UUCP (Douglas L. Ice)
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Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
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In article <1645@hound.UUCP> 5125kaf@hound.UUCP (K.FRIEDMAN) writes:
>
>
>     Three men are in a room. The room has no mirrors and the three men
>are in a straight line such that the person in the back of the line
>can see the two people in front of him, the middle person can see
>only the person in front of him, and the person in front can't see
>anyone. Another person walks in with a bag containing 3 black hats
>and two red hats. The man pulls three hats at random out of the bag
>and places them randomly on the three men. He walks out of the room.
>The man in the back says,"I don't know what color hat I'm wearing."
>The man in the middle says,"I don't know what color hat I'm wearing, either."
>Now tell me what color hat the man in the front of the line is wearing
>and why.
>

	I believe we must assume that the man in the back and the
middle man both know that there were 3 black hats and 2 red hats in the
bag (or at least that there were only 2 red hats available).
	If the front and middle men both wore red hats, then the back
man would know that he wore a black hat.  But he doesn't know, so
either the front or middle man wears a black hat.  Now if the middle
man, knowing this, sees a red hat on the front man, he would know that
he wears a black hat.  Since he doesn't know this, the front man must
wear a black hat.  (Sorry about the verb tense changes)

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                                                 --- Doug Ice