Sunday morning logic puzzle (a trifle easier than before)
Three smart men were trying to find out who is the smartest of them all. Or was at least most logical and quickest thinker. To resolve that, they went to a woman who had the reputation of being the smartest of them all. She devised a quick problem for them. She blindfolded them and painted a dot on each of their foreheads.
She then told them “I have painted a dot on each of your foreheads. The dots are either white or black in color. I am going to soon open your blindfolds. You will be able to see other’s dots but not your own. I am then going to ask you to raise your hand if you see a white dot (on either of the two friend’s foreheads). Then I am going to ask you to guess the color of your own dot”.
Saying so, she opened their blindfolds.
“You may raise your hand now if you see a white dot”
All three men raised their hands.
“Okay, now guess what color is on your forehead”.
The three men started pondering and soon one of them – who was indeed a little smarter than the others – said “I have a white dot on my forehead”.
“Correct”, said the lady.
Question: How did the man figure out what color he had?
The answer is a white dot. But there is a twist.
Let’s get the logic that Ramesh, Ashistaru, StephenSamudra, Ranjan and Deepak used to get the answer.
Everybody raised their hands. Certainly then there is only one black dot at the most (or no black dot). The smartest person would think that if I had a black dot on my head, then the other two would immediately say white for themselves… because you know… there can be no more than one black dot. So it has to be white.
Now here is the twist. Many of you have deduced right that all of them had white dots. But some have deduced that there is a case where there is a black dot too. This case is NOT possible. To understand that, I am posting a followup puzzle…