Puzzles

Here are some logic puzzles I heard during the course of my work. And I love logic puzzles.

 

Puzzle 1 - difficulty: **

 

There are 3 identical light bulbs A, B & C in an enclosed room. Outside the room there are 3 identical switches 1, 2 & 3. After you play around with the 3 switches, you can only go into the room once, after which you know which switch control which light bulb, ie, Switch 1 control what, Switch 2 control what, Switch 3 control what.

 

Point to note: when you are outside the room playing around with the switch, you can't see the inside of the room, including the light bulbs. 

 

 

Puzzle 2 - difficulty: ***

 

There are 3 death row prisoners standing in a single file, the tallest behind, shortest in front, and all of them is facing front. The king choose 3 apples from a bag of 2 red and 2 green apples and put 1 apple on each of their heads. The king throws the remaining 1 apple away, whose color none of the prisoners know.

 

Each prisoner cannot talk to one another, cannot turn around, cannot see his own apple. So the scenario now is that the tallest prisoner can see the apples on the head of the prisoners in front of him; the one standing in the middle can see the apple on the head of the shortest guy; and the shortest guy can see nothing.

 

The prisoners are supposed to guess the color of the apple on top of their heads. Upon giving the right answer, they will be freed. However, upon giving the wrong answer, they will be beheaded immediately.

 

So, it happens that the color sequence of apples from the tallest guy to the shortest guy is: red, green, red. And the middle person, upon some hesitation, figured out the color of the apple above his head and was freed immediately. He did not simply guess the answer, he was absolutely 101% sure of the color of the apple above his head.

 

How the hell did he figure out?

 

 

Puzzle 3 - difficulty ****

 

There are 2 rooms, one is filled with traps, tigers, scopions, snakes - after you go in most probably you will never come out again; the other is filled riches and treasures beyond your wildest imagination. We will label the rooms 'Good Room' and 'Bad Room' respectively. However, you don't know which is which.

 

Don't worry though, there are two persons in front of the two rooms to help you. BUT, there is a catch: one of them can only tell lies and one of them can only tell the truth, and as usual, you can't tell who is who.

 

You can only ask any ONE of them one question and ONE question ONLY. You die die want to get all the treasures in the Good Room. So the question is:

 

What question will you ask?

 

Hint: the question is phrase in such a way that it doesn't matter who you ask.

 

 

(I found out about Puzzle 3 on the net long time ago, but alas, I forgot the ask my colleagues...)

 

 

Oh btw, no answers will be given. I won't want to rob you of the joy you will have when you figure out the answers yourself. =)