Eugene Salamin <gene_salamin@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Joshua Singer <singer@stanford.edu> wrote:
As it was originally told to me . . .
A traveler passes through a small village, each of whose inhabitants has a single colored dot .... ... As the traveler passes through, he casually remarks, "Some people in this village have blue dots". Ten days later, ....
This can't be right. The information provided by the traveler was already known to everybody. In the case of the problem of the unfaithful wives, the king issues an edict, which starts the clock ticking.
I believe the phrase "he casually remarks" should read "he publically announces," meaning that he states it in a way that (1) everyone hears and believes him, (2) everyone knows that (1) occurs, (3) everyone knows that (2) occurs, (4) everyone knows that (3) occurs, etc. all at the same time. It takes about N such pieces of information to make the clock tick for N days. Dan