... Three Hat Puzzle ... ... Three Hat Puzzle ... ... Recommend this page to a friend.
There is no play on words and there are no tricks; just clear-headed thinking. There are 3 black hats and 2 white hats in a box. Three men (we will call them Tom, Dick, and Harry) each reach into the box and place one of the hats on his own head. They cannot see what color hat they have chosen.
Now they are situated in a such a way that Tom can see the hats on Dick and Harry's heads, Dick can only see the hat on Harry's head, Harry cannot see any hats, but they are all able to hear each other's answers to the following questions:
First Tom is asked if he knows the color of the hat he is wearing, and he says "No"
Then Dick is asked if he knows the color of the hat he is wearing, and he says "No"
Finally Harry is asked if he knows the color of the hat he is wearing, and he says "Yes"Harry then names the correct color, and explains how he figured it out.
QUESTION: What color is Harry's hat and how does Harry figure it out?
Only, and I mean ONLY if you cannot figure out the answer,
And after giving it time and some real serious thought,
After swallowing your pride and realizing the truth,
After clearly admiting you are too stupid to think,
Should you click ... here ... for the answer.As long as were're on puzzles, try this one for size:
We'll call it SEVENTEEN MULESA Missouri farmer passed away and left 17 mules to his three sons. The instructions left in the will said that the oldest boy was to get one-half, the second oldest one-third, and the youngest one-ninth. The three sons, recognizing the difficulty of dividing 17 mules into these fractions, began to argue.
Their uncle heard about the argument, hitched up his mule and drove out to settle the matter. He added his mule to the 17, making 18. The oldest therefore got one-half, or nine, the second oldest got one-third, or six, and the youngest son got one-ninth, or two. Adding up 9, 6 and 2 equals 17. The uncle, having settled the argument, hitched up his mule and drove home.
Obvious question is ... How can that be? The answer here doesn't fascinate me as much as the Three Hat Puzzle (it's just a matter of plain arithmetic), so I'll put it below. Shame on you for not realizing that 1/2 plus 1/3 plus 1/9 does not add up to one whole. Look, pal, don't keep me busy here; just look below.
Here, why scroll; I'll make it easy for you; nice guy that I am.
Politely we'll call this the ... Dumb-Dumb Click ... for want of a better name.
As I started to say, the fractions don't add up to one. Using the calculator that comes with your computer, you find as follows:
1/2 = 0.50
1/3 = 0.33
1/9 = 0.11Without your calculator (unless you have a serious problem which we won't discuss here), the above adds up to 0.94 ... plus a tad more because those decimals were brough to the nearest hundredth.
I didn't go the the nearest thousandths because I always have trouble saying "thousandths" (not too many words end with 5 consonents, all of which seem to get pronounced).
Anyway, not to get off the subject, if the fractions don't add up to one whole, then the fractional part of 17 can't add up to a full 17. Do you still have your calculator out?
1/2 of 17 = 8.50
1/3 of 17 = 5.67
1/9 of 17 = 1.89And adding that up gives us 16.06 plus a tad less (that means minus), because we again, rounded it off. And what do I hear? That's right, we need more horse meat. Therefore, the uncle's horse.
Again, the fractions don't add up to one whole so the fractional parts of 18 won't add up to 18. Let's try it. Calculator? C'mon, you're not finished yet. Forget it; it's written in the puzzle:
1/2 of 18 = 9
1/3 of 18 = 6
1/9 of 18 = 2Add up to less than 18 but a neat 17. You might ask how come we are left with a full horse for Uncle (whatever his name is)? What kind of a question is that; did you ever see a fractional part of a horse? Maybe where you buy your horse meat but that's not what we do here in the Big Apple. At least, I hope we don't.
And I hope this helped you solve the Seventeen Mules ... again, it's only my opinion, but it's no where as exciting as the Three Hat Puzzle.
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