Creative thinking question

[Montez]

Correct, Sander.

Here's another one on the same lines, a little easier:

There are four man standing in front of a firing-squad. Two of them (nr.1 & 3) wear a black hat and two of them (nr.2 & 4) wear a white hat. They are all facing the same direction and between nr.3 and nr.4 stands a brick wall (see picture). So nr.1 can see nr.2 & 3, nr.2 sees nr.3, nr.3 sees only the wall and nr.4 doesn't see a thing. The men know that there are two white and two black hats.
The commander of the firing-squad is willing to let the men go if one of them can say what color hat he is wearing. The men are not allowed to talk. The only thing they may say is "I'm wearing a white/black hat". If one of the men knows which hat he is wearing he must tell it and all men will be free.
Which man knows 100% sure what color hat he's wearing?

    -->
I  I  I | I
1  2  3   4

 

[calculon000]

I can think of a solution:
One of them takes his hat off and looks at it, in which case they all can be 100% sure.

 

[TorontoReign]

Riddle me this.....

I have a riddle for everyone. You can only ask me yes or no questions to figure it out. I don't think anyone can answer this , so prove me wrong.....

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

 

[Murdoch]

And merged...

 

[drachton]

There are four man standing in front of a firing-squad. Two of them (nr.1 & 3) wear a black hat and two of them (nr.2 & 4) wear a white hat. They are all facing the same direction and between nr.3 and nr.4 stands a brick wall (see picture). So nr.1 can see nr.2 & 3, nr.2 sees nr.3, nr.3 sees only the wall and nr.4 doesn't see a thing. The men know that there are two white and two black hats.
The commander of the firing-squad is willing to let the men go if one of them can say what color hat he is wearing. The men are not allowed to talk. The only thing they may say is "I'm wearing a white/black hat". If one of the men knows which hat he is wearing he must tell it and all men will be free.
Which man knows 100% sure what color hat he's wearing?

    --> 
I  I  I | I 
1  2  3   4

#2 knows his hat color: he sees #3's black hat, and he knows his own hat isn't also black, otherwise #1, seeing two men with black hats in front of him, could tell his own hat was white and say so immediately. Since #1 isn't saying anything, #2 knows his hat must be white.

 

[Montez]

#2 knows his hat color: he sees #3's black hat, and he knows his own hat isn't also black, otherwise #1, seeing two men with black hats in front of him, could tell his own hat was white and say so immediately. Since #1 isn't saying anything, #2 knows his hat must be white.

You got it.

 

[Murdoch]

#2 knows his hat color: he sees #3's black hat, and he knows his own hat isn't also black, otherwise #1, seeing two men with black hats in front of him, could tell his own hat was white and say so immediately. Since #1 isn't saying anything, #2 knows his hat must be white.

ahh, that's what I was missing, to take into other people's perceptions and actions. If one would have said something it would mean 2 and 3 were a single color, if 1 didn't that means they're different....I am now enlightened.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Re: Riddle me this.....

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

Because his radio broke?

 

[Fyu-jon!!!]

Re: Riddle me this.....

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

He missed his favourite show?

He killed himself by accident because he's deaf and couldn't hear the car that ran him over as he got out the car?

He was forced to do it by an ancient curse on his radio?

A magical goat was floating by his car, ordering him to kill himself in sign language?

Up till now his radio was possessed by his deceased wife's spirit, to whom he could talk by turning on the radio, but when he heard nothing he realised she left him for another ghost?

 

[Montez]

Re: Riddle me this.....

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

Far fetched and Fallout-inspired: A world-wide nuclear war had just started, and the man was driving away from a city hoping to escape the destruction. When he heard nothing on the radio he concluded that civilization had been destroyed and killed himself rather than live out that episode of "The Twilight Zone".

 

[calculon000]

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

Has he suddenly become deaf and cannot bear to live life without his hearing?

I have one:
"A police officer comes across a dead man who had died via a shot to the head at point-blank range. Beside the body is a tape recorder. The officer picks up the tape recorder, presses play, and hears the man's audio suicide note. He immediately determines from this that the man was murdered. How did he know?"

 

[Big T]

I have one:
"A police officer comes across a dead man who had died via a shot to the head at point-blank range. Beside the body is a tape recorder. The officer picks up the tape recorder, presses play, and hears the man's audio suicide note. He immediately determines from this that the man was murdered. How did he know?"

The gunshot was recorded on the tape? Which doesn't work if the tape reached the end and automatically finished. Hmm, I dunno.

 

[Montez]

"A police officer comes across a dead man who had died via a shot to the head at point-blank range. Beside the body is a tape recorder. The officer picks up the tape recorder, presses play, and hears the man's audio suicide note. He immediately determines from this that the man was murdered. How did he know?"

Taking part of Big T's answer - he hears the gunshot on the tape, but when he pressed play the suicide note started from the beginning so someone else must have pressed rewind.

 

[Ashmo]

The problem with some "logic" riddles is that they are too ambiguous.

Like the phone booth one: even the "real" (or rather: expected) answer is very unlikely because it's based on the assumption that the man extended his arms quickly enough while holding his hands in a way that allows the glass to cut his wrists and then he'd have to stay inside the phone booth while bleeding to death (which isn't exactly the fastest way to die and also wouldn't exactly represent the natural behaviour of most people).

Ambiguous questions only work if they are directed towards a particular audience with a common definition of reality.

The surgeon riddle is not very ambiguous as the surgeon's gender is not specified whereas the relationship between the surgeon, the dead man and the child is specified explicitly and the most straightforward conclusion is that if she is a parent and the father is dead, she is most likely female and therefore the mother (of course she could also be a "he" -- homosexual parents ARE a reality these days; However there aren't many logically deductable answers apart from that).

A shape/colour question on the other hand is VERY ambiguous, just as any riddle involving number bases would be (base 13 jokes are not funny). Unless they're directed at an audience which assumes the same (implied) definitions of terms and reality, they make very poor riddles and cannot be deducted with logic alone because there's info missing.

As for another logic riddle (well... more of a trick question popular in latenight call-in gameshows on tv):

Monica's father has five daughters:
Lala, Lele, Lolo, Lulu -- what's the name of his fifth daughter?

It's amazing how many people give the wrong answer through a (somewhat) logical assumption although the correct one is specified in the question.

 

[Fyu-jon!!!]

Obviously Monica...

 

[Mikey]

Monica's father has five daughters:
Lala, Lele, Lolo, Lulu -- what's the name of his fifth daughter?

Lili, becuase Monica is actually Lala's nickname, since she can't stand being named after a teletubby.

 

[Per]

Taking part of Big T's answer - he hears the gunshot on the tape, but when he pressed play the suicide note started from the beginning so someone else must have pressed rewind.

That makes sense - although the person who rewinded the tape could have been anyone who came around after the murder/suicide, so it doesn't really prove anything.

The gunshot part also pretty well illustrates the problem with this kind of question: the far-fetched missing information. The solver is expected to extrapolate it, but this essentially means making it up - so what's the difference from making up an equally far-fetched explanation of your own?

Q: Bill added up 2 and 2 and came up with 5. How?

A: He added another 1. Har har.

 

[calculon000]

Per, you are so right, which is why I stand by the answer I gave for the firing squad one.

he hears the gunshot on the tape, but when he pressed play the suicide note started from the beginning so someone else must have pressed rewind.

Yeah, you got it.

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

I demand the answer for this one.

 

[Volkov]

A man is driving down the road. He turns on the radio and hears nothing. He stops the car, gets out, and kills himself. Why did he kill himself???

I demand the answer for this one.

I could give you the answer, since I've heard it before, but I also won't because I love the taste of frustration. It's like honey.

Rest assured, the answer is stupid, and almost impossible to guess. Lateral thinking puzzles are some of the most annoying and pointless excercises on earth.

 

[Mikey]

He stops on the road, and so effectively kills himself by walking into the path of another car?