Very tricky riddle...yook me ages to solve it.....not really but still?!


Question: The three wisest sages in the land were brought before the king to see which of them were worthy to become the king's advisor. After passing many tests of cunning and invention, they were pitted against each other in a final battle of the wits.

Led blind-folded into a small room, the sages were seated around a small wooden table as the king described the test for them.

"Upon each of your heads I have placed a hat. Now you are either wearing a blue hat or a white hat. All I will tell you is this- at least one of you is wearing a blue hat. There may be only one blue hat and two white hats, there may be two blue hats and one white hat, or there may be three blue hats. But you may be certain that there are not three white hats."

"I will shortly remove your blind folds, and the test will begin. The first to correctly announce the colour of his hat shall be my advisor. Be warned however, he who guesses wrongly shall be beheaded. If not one of you answers within the hour, you will be sent home and I will seek elsewhere for wisdom."

With that, the king uncovered the sages' eyes and sat in the corner and waited. One sage looked around and saw that his competitors each were wearing blue hats. From the look in their eyes he could see their thoughts were the same as his, "What is the colour of my hat?"

For what seemed like hours no one spoke. Finally he stood up and said, "The colour of the hat I am wearing is . . ."


Answers: The three wisest sages in the land were brought before the king to see which of them were worthy to become the king's advisor. After passing many tests of cunning and invention, they were pitted against each other in a final battle of the wits.

Led blind-folded into a small room, the sages were seated around a small wooden table as the king described the test for them.

"Upon each of your heads I have placed a hat. Now you are either wearing a blue hat or a white hat. All I will tell you is this- at least one of you is wearing a blue hat. There may be only one blue hat and two white hats, there may be two blue hats and one white hat, or there may be three blue hats. But you may be certain that there are not three white hats."

"I will shortly remove your blind folds, and the test will begin. The first to correctly announce the colour of his hat shall be my advisor. Be warned however, he who guesses wrongly shall be beheaded. If not one of you answers within the hour, you will be sent home and I will seek elsewhere for wisdom."

With that, the king uncovered the sages' eyes and sat in the corner and waited. One sage looked around and saw that his competitors each were wearing blue hats. From the look in their eyes he could see their thoughts were the same as his, "What is the colour of my hat?"

For what seemed like hours no one spoke. Finally he stood up and said, "The colour of the hat I am wearing is . . ."

Blue.

blue

i just dont get it

Blue

blue

Consider this less obvious situation- that there were exactly two blue hats. This seems a very real possibility at first, after all, we can see exactly two blue hats. So everyone sits and thinks- for a little while. But if there are only two hats, then two people see one blue and one white hat. These two people will very quickly, by virtue of the other's silence, rule out the possibility that there is only one blue hat. One of these two lucky sages would cry blue within a few short minutes, if that long.

Blue
At first glance, this problem appears to be impossible to solve. Contributing to this is the feeling that the King's only real clue - that there is at least one blue hat - is useless since the sage can clearly see that there are at least two blue hats.

blue



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