In 1996, the mathematical logician George Boolos published a paper describing “the hardest logic puzzle ever” which he attributed to the logician Raymond Smullyan.
The puzzle has gained much attention.Here it is in all its glory:
“Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language in which the words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are ‘da’ and ‘ja’, in some order. You do not know which word means which.”
June 13, 2012
