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From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Beyond Mr.P & Mr.S.
Message-ID: <1303@houdi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Sep-87 10:13:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: houdi.1303
Posted: Thu Sep  3 10:13:42 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 11:09:25 EDT
References: <668@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> <1064@homxc.UUCP> <1065@homxc.UUCP> <1238@pdn.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 36
Summary: Sorry, (1,2,10) is too easy to solve the problem as stated

In article <1238@pdn.UUCP>, colin@pdn.UUCP (Colin Kendall) writes:
> In article <1295@houdi.UUCP>, marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes:
> > > .....  It is true that the key is in realizing
> > > that the salesman can come up with two or more answers ...
> > > ..... but that when he is told that the oldest
> > > daughter is not a twin the answer is unique.
> 
> In the original story, the reference made by the mother
> to the respective ages of her daughters is:
> 
> 	"mother:   OK, you're right, I made it tough on you, but I have to go
> 	now and drive my oldest daughter to her piano lesson."
> 
> If the ages of the daughters are 1, 2, and 10, she has an oldest
> daughter. The various solvers seem to have made the 
> assumption that the other two daughters are the same age.

Only one solver made that incorrect assumption, in his first posting.
Instead, our key clue is that the salesman needed the clue that there
was an oldest daughter, and not two oldest daughters the same age.

Your proposed solution is too easy, because then the salesman would not
have needed that clue.  The house number (product of the ages) would be
20, which can be uniquely decomposed into three factors whose sum is 13.

> > I don't know what this has to do with AI.  It's a test of real
> > intelligence.  Who else solved it without a scrathpad?
> 
> I did, by refraining from making an unwarranted assumption.

Nice try, but no cigar.  I still don't know what this has to do with AI
(pardon my misspelling of scratchpad).

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201)-949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	ihnp4!houdi!marty1