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Lateral Thinking - I think NOT!
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Posted By:
Lord Lucan
in somewhere strange
Mar 31, 2005
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At rec.puzzles we have for Paul Sloane's lateral thinking puzzle 13:
The Deadly Party
A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?
Paul Sloane's ‘solution’ (revealed later) is (apart from not supported by the puzzle wording) contrived and unsatisfying – or I think so, at least.
My solution/reasoning is:
Firstly, just because everybody who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning doesn't mean that the punch was poisoned. In fact, the problem doesn’t say that only those who drank the punch died, the best that can be deduced is that some, but not necessarily all, of those who died had drunk the punch.
Secondly, that one person drank the punch and was not poisoned suggests that the punch did not contain poison.
The correct (i.e. my) solution is that the punch was not poisoned and that the other guests were poisoned by eating or drinking something else which was.
Paul Sloane's solution is:
The poison in the punch came from the ice cubes. When the man drank the punch the ice was fully frozen. Gradually it melted, poisoning the punch.
Hmmm… see what I mean by contrived? It’s bit like the denouement in those terrible police and detective dramas on afternoon TV, but in this case without the benefit of a gripping narrative.
The essence of many of these lateral thinking problems is to lay a false trail in order to mislead the unwary solver. In this case it seems that Paul apparently has followed his own false trail. And although he assumes that the poison was in the punch he seems then to miss the more likely possibility that it was the guest who left early who was the murderer and put the poison in the bowl after he had had his drink. (Or maybe the murderer waited until after the early leaver had had his drink before he poisoned the punch to throw suspicion elsewhere – but wait …. how did the murderer know that he would be leaving early?). Once you start along this road there are many possible ‘solutions’.
Of course, what has happened is that the problem has simply been poorly worded and should say something like "Everyone else at the party was poisoned by the punch".
Perhaps I just don’t understand how some these ‘lateral’ puzzles should ‘work’ and it’s my fault because my mind is just too logical? (I do think some of the puzzles are good - numbers 16 and 20, for example).
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Comments
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Page 3 of 4 pages < 1 2 3 4 > |
Katherine
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Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 | 10:21 PM
Don't worry, I thought of the possibility that the guy poisoned the punch and left, too. Does that make us all loonies?  (Actually, I always gnaw on ice cubes when I drink things, so I'd be poisoned too...hmmm.) It's also quite conceivable, as the OP said, that the other people died from something completely un-punch related or that there were people who died who didn't drink the punch. It could be more correctly worded so as to resolve that bit of uncertainty.
That actually reminds me of the old UL in which a lady was having a party, and caught her cat eating her beautiful dish of (some type of seafood--caviar? salmon?); she smoothed over the eaten bits, and booted the cat out on the porch. A while later, one of her guests called her over and said, "Your cat! We've found him. I'm sorry to tell you that he's--DEAD." "OH NO!" cried the lady. "Stop eating that seafood! My cat ate some and now he's dead! You'll get food poisoning, you'll get food poisoning!" The end result was that the party was ruined, as everyone had to go to the hospital and get their stomachs pumped in case of food poisoning. They only discovered later that the cat had died from an unfortunate collison with a Chevrolet...heh.
I hate those sorts of puzzles, though; they always used to torment us with them in school, especially the one that goes, "A man was found dead with a puddle of water beside him. How did he die?" The answer (OF COURSE!) is that somebody stabbed him with an icicle. There's also some moronic one about Betty and Barney in a plane or something, but the answer is that they're goldfish? Heck, I don't know.  |
Craig
in NZ
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Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 | 10:23 PM
think of it like this, cost of room = $27. The $3 they split at the end has no relevance as it STARTED in there wallets and it ENDED in there wallets.
They have to pay $25 for room plus $2 charge, dividing it by 3 = 9. Whats the big deal here?
Its just a dodgy way to word the problem thats all. |
Katherine
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Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 | 10:30 PM
Oh dear, go look at question 14. Albatross. ALBATROSS??? That's bloody ridiculous. You have to specifically guess IT WAS AN ALBATROSS when it could be practically anything else that might live on an island? Oy.
Oooh, and my subliminal message for this post is ernmalley! |
Rod
in the land of smarties.
Member
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Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 | 11:33 PM
Okay, people like Craig, I'm only gonna do this once...
THE FUCKING SOLUTION TO THE PUZZLE HAS BEEN GIVEN UMPTEEN TIMES, NOW GIVE THE HELL UP, ALREADY!!!!!!!!
Whew, that almost hurt to type.
Damn, people, I'd complain about how you should read before you post, but if you don't read the thread, you'll never see this anyway, so just yank my feeding tube and get it over with, already!
To all the regulars... You know exactly how I feel, do you not? |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 | 03:39 PM
Ok, if you take the $25 they paid, subtract the $30, then add the number of guys - the bellhop + Avagadro's number / the number of jumping people in China * Raoul's hairline you get the ratio chavs to Cynthia's phone number.
I hope that helped.
Rod sure seems to be grumpy today. |
Hairy Houdini
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Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 | 04:04 PM
What's a hairline? |
Rod
in the land of smarties.
Member
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Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 | 04:10 PM
Finally, Charybdis makes some sense of it all
And is that the number of jumping Chinese people in China, or the total number of jumping people in China (Chinese or not)?
You'd be grumpy too, if Godzilla just ate YOUR finally paid for car.
And bigfoot just married your cat.
And then you had to read people typing out the same damned solution to a simple problem over and over again. |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
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Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2005 | 04:13 PM
Yes Rod, we know how you feel... even though I'm a little guilty of "flamin'" this thread yesterday because I was bored at work... |
Nick
in Merrie Olde Englande
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 | 04:05 PM
A man has 17 elephants, and one day they sit on him.
In his will he made very clear how his elephants should be shared between his sons. The eldest gets half the herd, the middle child gets a third and the youngest gets a ninth. This troubles the lawyers no end, cause elephants are valuable and you can't just go around chopping them up. So the party decamps to the temple, where they ask the high priest what to do. He tells them, very calmly, simple to add one of the temple elephants to the herd. After many thanks, they take the extra elephant back and set about dividing them up. There are now 18, so the eldest son takes his half (9), the scond son takes his third (6) and the youngest son takes his ninth (2). One elephant is left over, and is returned to the temple. Huh? |
andychrist
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 | 04:34 PM
1/2 +1/3+1/9=17/18. When the equation is applied to only 17 elephants, the remainder is .944 (of an elephant.) Adding an extra elephant results in a remainder of exactly one. |
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 | 04:55 PM
I think the real question is, how did all seventeen elephants sit on him? I guess it would have to be one after another, but why did they all do it? |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 | 05:09 PM
Andychrist said...
"1/2 +1/3+1/9=17/18. When the equation is applied to only 17 elephants, the remainder is .944 (of an elephant.) Adding an extra elephant results in a remainder of exactly one."
Not to mention that 1/2 of 17 is 8.5, 1/3 of 17 is 5.7, and 1/9 of 17 is 1.9... so the remainder is kind of irrelevant since it said in the riddle that they didn't want to go around chopping up the elephants. It's all about not chopping elephants, which you can do (and still use the old mans fractions) with 18 but not 17. |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 | 05:16 PM
If you did use 17 elephants they're divided as 8.5 (1/2) and 5.66 (1/3) and 1.88 (1/9) which totals 16.04 elephants with a remainder of .96. Give .50 of that remainder to the first guy (1/2) and .34 of that remainder to the 2nd guy (1/3) and .12 of that remainder to the 3rd guy (1/9) and you've used up the entire 17 elephants and the totals will still be the same. 9 to the 1st guy, 6 to the 2nd, and 2 to the 3rd. It would be messy work but you could still reach the same conclusion with only 17 elephants... |
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 10:51 AM
I wonder if an Elephant could make my dinner tonite. Hmm...
I have a riddle:
Q. What's in my pocket? |
Katherine
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 11:24 AM
A: A wocket?
(Sorry, couldn't resist...) |
Silent Fish
in an endless forest of wooden chairs
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 12:11 PM
the time at the north pole is always the the time in greenich england MAWHA! |
Charybdis
in Hell
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 01:42 PM
Maegan said - I have a riddle:
Q. What's in my pocket?
You're a woman. The answer is - Tissue. Duh. |
andychrist
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 03:46 PM
Why is a raven like a writing desk? |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 04:00 PM
Why? |
Rod
in the land of smarties.
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 | 04:05 PM
One hand grenade and they're both useless?
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