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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Let's Tease Your Brain

While I was browsing the Internet randomly last night I came upon this logic and math puzzle site. Here are a few relatively easy but fun puzzles to solve. Here are a couple of them, localized to fit us paradise islanders. See if you guys can solve them in quick time and let me know the answers. I'll publish all the comments after a couple of days.

(1)
The newly made crown of the King Rajapakse was stolen even before he got to set his hands on it and was furious beyond imagination. His royal police set to work immediately and apprehended five suspects in no time and were questioned. Each of them gave two statements, and a heavenly voice told the chief investigator that exactly one statement by each one of them was false, while the other was true. Following are the statements given by each of the suspects.
Ranil:
It wasn't Somawansha
It was Mangala

Mangala:
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Somawansha

Wimal:
It was Somawansha
It wasn't Ranil

Rathnasiri:
It was Wimal
It was Mangala

Somawansha:
It was Rathnasiri
It wasn't Ranil
Who stole the crown?


(2)
The next time, throne of the King was stolen. Usual procedure followed, and this time six suspects were apprehended. This time only four people dared to lie, and each of the four people who lied told only one false statement each. All the other statements were true. Following are the statements.
Mervin said:
It wasn't Ranil
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Rathnasiri

Ranil said:
It wasn't Mervin
It wasn't Mangala
It wasn't Rathnasiri

Mangala said:
It wasn't Ranil
It wasn't Somawansha
It wasn't Rathnasiri

Wimal said:
It wasn't Mervin
It wasn't Somawansha
It wasn't Mangala

Rathnasiri said:
It wasn't Mangala
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Somawansha

Somawansha said:
It wasn't Mangala
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Mervin
Who stole the throne? To give you a little clue, though this may seem difficult than the previous one, it is not. It might even take less time than the previous one.


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14 comments:

  1. You know my seemingly active brain went into a hibernation mode as soon as I saw these names. lol Mmm.. it's still tough for me.. and a bit confusing too. But if I'm to make a blind guess considering their personalities, I'd bet it's Mangala who stole the crown, both times. lol *meant no harm, it's just a joke* =D

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  2. SPOILER ALERT:
    HERE BE ANSWERS (or so I think)


    It was Wimal
    It wasn Mangala

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  3. My guesses. crown - wimal cos he likes to look good, very vain.Imagine his next set of posters. throne - mangala cos he's desperate for a seat, any seat.
    We visited uni of peradeniya. beautiful. My girls agreed to go cos I told them its your uni.

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  4. First senario it was Wimal. But haven't had a chance to solve the 2nd one.

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  5. 1st one: Hmm, let's say Wimal! ;)

    2nd one: It was Ranil! :D

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  6. Guys, you are not to guess but to work it out!
    The answers are 1)Wimal and 2)Mangala, but I thought you'd try to work them out. LOL.

    @MessyMama
    It's great to hear you guys went to see it! They went there because of me? LOL never thought I'd be an idol to someone. So how did they like it? It is indeed breathtaking...

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  7. LOL. Good one Sach. Solving this in Paradise style is easy, all it takes is one white van!

    BTW, my bro too is a product of Pera; I think it is the ONLY ‘proper’ uni in SL.

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  8. He was at Pera? Recently?
    And thanks for the complement bro!

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  9. I see.. so Mr. M did steal a crown in the end! lol So how do you work it out properly, I mean the step by step logic to solve it? These kinda puzzles always confuse me. -__-

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  10. First you gotta find a starting point. And work it on from there with the facts you know. Let me show.

    (1)
    Only Rathnasiri gives two statements of the same pattern; both his statements are "was". Since exactly one of the two are true, only one of Wimal or Mangala is the thief. Then Ranil's two statements give the best clue. According to him, if we assume "It was Mangala" to be true it implies his other statement, which is "It wasn't Somawansha" is false. But then if "It wasn't Somawansha" is false then that suggest that Somawansha is the thief which is a contradiction since only one person can be the thief. So we can conclude that Mangala isn't the thief. So by Rathnasiri's statement, it is then clear that Wimal has to be the thief.

    (2)
    This should be easier. All six people say "It wasn't" in all their statements. We also know that four statements are false. If a statement like "It wasn't XXX" is false then that means "It was XXX" is true. Now, again, since there is only one thief, the false statement by all four people NEED to be the same statement or else it will become a contradiction. Now all you have to do is find the sentence that appear in four different people's statements. There is only one; "It wasn't Mangala". So if it is false then that means Mangala is indeed the thief.

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  11. Geez.. that was a lil tough but you've nicely explained it. Thanks a lot Sach. ^__^

    Hope your next brainteaser will be a lot easier. =D

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  12. Hey I solved it correctly, what do I get? I'm up for virtual goodies.

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