Raymond Smullyan, one of the grand masters of logic puzzles, sadly passed away at the age of 97 earlier this week. In his honor, I present a classic puzzle adapted from his book What Is the Name of This Book?
There is a wide variety of puzzles about an island in which certain inhabitants called "knights" always tell the truth and others called "knaves" always lie. It is assumed that every inhabitant of the island is either a knight or a knave.
In this problem, there are only two people, A and B, each of whom is either a knight or a knave. A makes the following statement: "At least one of us is a knave." What are A and B?
Click below for the solution.
Raymond Smullyan presented a couple more of his puzzles in a 1982 interview on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. When you see the white hair and long beard, it seems like even 35 years ago that Smullyan was an old man, but the twinkle in his eye and the playfulness in his voice reveal that he was always a child at heart. Watch the full interview below.
If these puzzles seem too easy, they're just a small sample of Dr. Smullyan's brilliant work. If you really want a challenge, I encourage you to check out some of his books, or The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever, also credited to Smullyan.
Finally, I leave you with a quote.
Why should I be worried about dying?
It's not going to happen in my lifetime!
-Raymond Smullyan (1919 - 2017)
1 comment:
Sumllyan was awesome. One of my favorite things he wrote was about his parents wanting him to get his hair cut in the 70s. After a long argument, he says "Fine! I'll get my hair cut!" His parents are still dissatisfied. It turns out what they really wanted was for him to WANT to get his hair cut.
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