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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Pants or No Pants Today

You have stepped across the border into a strange new nation. After studying the inhabitants for a while, you make the following observations.
  1. All bearded Capricorns have jobs.
  2. All Capricorns with jobs can do magic tricks.
  3. All Capricorns who can do magic tricks are double-jointed.
  4. All double-jointed people who wear pants have beards.
  5. All unemployed, clean-shaven people can do magic tricks.
  6. Nobody who has a beard and can do magic tricks wears pants.

Which of the following statements is true based on your observations?
  1. Nobody with a beard wears pants.
  2. No double-jointed people wear pants.
  3. No one who can do magic tricks wears pants.
  4. No Capricorns wear pants.
  5. None of the above.

3 comments:

  1. ...except "none of the above", obviously...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Suppose you have a Capricorn that wears pants and does magic. Then he doesn't have a beard (6) and he is double-jointed (3) -> But that means he has a beard (4). That doesn't work.

    Suppose you have a Capricorn that wears pants and does not do magic. Then he's unemployed (2), which means he doesn't have a beard (1) -> Which means he does magic tricks. That doesn't work.

    Suppose there was a Capricorn who wore pants. Either he doesn't do magic tricks or he does; suppose he does. Then by (6) he doesn't have a beard, then by (3) he is double-jointed - but by (4), he has a beard. This is a contradiction, so he can't do magic tricks. Then by (2) he's unemployed, then by (1) he doesn't have a beard, then by (5) he does magic tricks - another contradiction. Therefore, such a Capricorn doesn't exist.

    And so the answer is no capricorns can wear pants!

    I'm not going to go through the rest of them, but for instance 1) A bearded person who wears pants can exist, as long as he/she doesn't do magic tricks.

    ReplyDelete

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