|
This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body. Posted Tuesday 21st February 2012 at 9.23 Bad temper Happy pancake day!  Pancake recipe: Start with just over half a mug of flour, add 1 egg, then bit by bit stir in most of a mug of milk (stir really fast to prevent lumps!) Heat some oil in a frying pan till it's REALLY HOT. Then pour the oil out into a small bowl and reduce the heat slightly. Pour in 1/4 mug of batter, chase it round the pan, and use a spatula to keep the edges from sticking. Once the pancake is moving freely in the pan, flip it! I saw this nice twist on a classic puzzle on Peter Winkler's site today: You are visiting the South Seas, and reach a fork in the road, wanting to know which of two roads leads to the village. Present are three willing natives, one each from a tribe of invariable truth-tellers, a tribe of invariable liars, and a tribe of random answerers. You don't know which native is from which tribe. Moreover, you are permitted to ask only two yes-or-no questions, each question being directed to just one native. Can you discover which road is the correct one? Here's a song from Standard Fare. Their new album is GREAT. Return to blog Comments Posted Wednesday 22nd February 2012 at 1.31pm Rich says: Have you seen Raymond Smullyan's 'Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever'? It's the same set-up but the villagers don't even answer in English. You know that 'da' and 'ja' mean 'yes' and 'no' but not which is which. I think that might need three questions, though. Posted Wednesday 22nd February 2012 at 1.39pm Rich says: Oh actually I remembered it wrong. The task in Smullyan's is to sort out which villager is which. That makes things even harder. In this version as long as you use the first question to make sure ___REDACTED___, you don't care who's who. Posted Wednesday 22nd February 2012 at 2.15pm Matt Roberts says: Yes, actually the place that I found this puzzle also mentioned the different language extension, but I decided just to quote the simpler version. By the way I'm about to redact your post so as not to spoil it for other people! Posted Monday 27th February 2012 at 12.15pm Melina says: Still trying to solve that puzzle ... Write a new comment: |