This reminds me of the classic puzzle genre where one person knows the sum of two integers and the other knows the product; the two each confess their ignorance about the values of the numbers, alternating confessions until one of them says "Now I know!". The actual puzzle isn't important. However: somehow this particular mini-genre is horribly vulnerable to tiny mistakes in wording which completely invalidate the intended solution. I've seen it happen more than once. On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Hilarie Orman <ho@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
Jason wrote:
In August 2001, I argued stridently on the fledgling Wikipedia that switching was irrelevant, and wrote code to prove it, only to be proven wrong by my own code.
Yes, I've heard more than one person say they were persuaded by their own code, even without running it, even without finishing the program. I think that's because writing the program forces one to confront the ambiguity in the statement of it.
If it were set up as usual, up until the door selection, but then proceeded with the announcer saying "Is that your final door?" and the contestant replying, "I'm not sure yet; what I want you to do is to show me a goat that is different from the one that I'm 2/3 sure is behind this door," then it wouldn't sound very mysterious.
A new puzzle category: the every so slightly ill-posed problem.
Hilarie
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