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From: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: How did they do in the test
Message-ID: <6596@cca.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Mar-86 01:58:08 EST
Article-I.D.: cca.6596
Posted: Sat Mar  8 01:58:08 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 20:51:53 EST
References: <> <6490@cca.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge
Lines: 24
Summary: 

In article <> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes:
>> ] My old friend, Professor Flootersnoot at Arkham University, has three
>> ] prize students in his Creative Ontology class, Jones, Smith, and Wilson.
>> ] Recently he sent me a small puzzle about how they placed in a recent
>> ] exam.  The puzzle consisted of three statements:
>> ] 
>> ] (1)	No other employee of the Adelphi bookstore placed ahead of
>> ] 	Wilson.
> 
>   Note that this statement does *not* imply that more than one of
>Flootersnoot's prize students work for the Adelphi bookstore, as asserted
>by whoever posted the 'solution' to this problem.  

Nice try, but you miss the point.  The full statement of the puzzle states
that all three conditions are necessary for the solution of the puzzle.
If Wilson is the only one working at the Adelphi bookstore, then this
statement does not contribute any information to the solution, i.e. the
statement is irrelevant.  The elegance of the puzzle resides precisely in
the fact that the requirement that the unknown data be such that all of
the statements are relevant and necessary makes it possible to deduce
enough restrictions on the data to make it possible to solve the puzzle.
[Now there is a convoluted sentence.]

	Richard Harter, SMDS Inc.