Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Four Apples; Awesome Pants

You open your eyes.

You are staring down at your bare feet.  They stand on a hard, grey floor with light grid markings that form small squares.  You can see yourself perfectly in the floor; your image is dark like a shadow but deep like a reflection.

Then, you notice your pants.  Your pants are awesome; your pants are inspirational; your pants are the best pants in the universe.  Everybody has dream pants.  Everybody.  These are yours.

As you raise your head completely, you see that you are in a kind of dome, with a ceiling as hard and grey as the floor beneath you.  But then you realize that it is not a dome at all -- the entire room is a perfect sphere, about 314 meters around.  You take two steps forward (or maybe upward), and the foreign gravity continues to pull you to the outside of the sphere from all directions.

You blink, and you notice a small, round table, the same grey color as the sphere you are inside.  A basket of four red apples rests in the middle of the table.  Three chairs surround the table, each spaced 120 perfect degrees apart from the next.  One chair, the chair in front of you, is empty.  The other two are already occupied.

"Hi, I'm Max," the one to the left says.

The one to the right laughs.  "Don't mind him -- I'm Max."

"I'll bet you wish you were, Bryan."

"All right, Bryan, enough of that."

You are walking forward.

"Come sit with us!"

"But please don't take an apple."

"The apples are for Bryan and me."

"You mean, 'Max and me.'"

You sit in the chair.

In front of the basket of four red apples you noticed earlier, there is an index card.  You read its message.
These two funny-looking boys are Bryan and Max.  Bryan always lies; Max always tells the truth.  One of them has more apples than the other.
Bryan coughs (or maybe it is Max).  You look up and see that the apples are no longer in the basket but in front of the two boys.  Each has two apples lying on the table in front of him.  You continue reading.
You can ask one funny-looking boy one question, and he will give you one answer.  Your task, which you have no choice but to accept, is to determine which one of the funny-looking boys has the most apples.
If you poke the nose of the boy with the most apples, you will exit this sphere and keep your awesome pants forever.  If you poke the nose of the other boy, you will exit this sphere but lose your awesome pants forever.
You think to yourself but do not speak, "'One of them has more apples than the other'?  How is that possible?  Is one hiding apples in his pants?"

You look at your pants, admire them, and realize that pants are a good hiding place for apples.

You look back up, and you ask one question to the boy on your left.

What do you ask?

13 comments:

  1. I would ask the boy on my left if he has dream pants. If he says he does not have dream pants, he is lying; therefore, he is Bryan. Based on the logic that probably the desired outcome for both boys is to have the most apples, I presume that the one who lies is the one who lies is the one with the most apples. Wait.

    This is silly. If you both have two apples, you have the same number of apples. Bryan wrote the card. He was lying.

    Hah.

    Except for Max made the poll question. But it was just a question, so he wasn't lying. He was probably reacting to having read this imaginary card written by Bryan.

    >.<

    But I have to poke somebody, or you will take away my dream pants. Ummm. Hiding apples is dishonest. Bryan always lies. Bryan is hiding apples in his pants. He has more apples.

    Therefore, if the boy to my left responds that he does not have dream pants, I will poke him in the nose.

    The End.

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  2. While I greatly enjoy Abby's response, the correct question to ask is, "If I were to ask the other funny-looking boy if you are telling the truth and whether you or he had more apples, what would he say?"

    If the person you asked is the liar, he would say that the other (the truth-teller) would name him the truth-teller, thus making him the liar.

    If the person you asked is the truth-teller, he would say that the other (the liar) would name him the liar, thus making him the truth-teller.

    Since you now know who lies and who tells the truth, you can then figure out who has the most apples with the second part of their answer; if the asked person is the liar and has more, he would say that the other (the truth-teller) would say that he has less. If you asked the liar and he had less, it would be the opposite.

    If you asked the truth-teller and he had more, he would say that the other (the liar) would say he has less. If you asked the truth-teller and he had less, it would be the opposite.

    Pooms, chicky.

    Also, I apologize for my inconsistent verb tenses.

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  3. Ahem. "Pooms, chicky" is copyrighted.

    © Pooms, chicky.

    Also, I refuse to acknowledge the superiority of your questions because of the plurality involved. Also also, we hafta use the information about the pants' potential and the universal dream pants factor!

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  4. It can be less complex than Matthew's. Use . . . fewer clauses.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. ooh, a removed comment! How scandalous!

    Also, I realize now how it could be simpler, though my answer still works. I just also found out who the liar is.

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  7. You cheated by asking two questions, Matt.

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  8. I'd just float in the dream-o-sphere and enjoy some more conversation with the Max and Max/Bryan

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  9. False, Bryan, my hypothetical statement involved asking two questions, but I only asked one question. There is only one part to my question.

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  10. Why does logic have to evade me? I would have never figured it out... Matthew's answer just confuses me... And I even have a book of logic puzzles to attempt to train my brain to think more logically...It is not working... HELP!

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  11. Mikaela, any true Yu-gi-oh fan would have known that answer.

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  12. smackers, you just made my life with that comment

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  13. I don't even like Yu-Gi-Oh... well, sometimes... okay, so maybe I watched like the original ones... and the 5D's series that came after the sucky second one, BUT HEY! It got cancelled anyways. And I don't own any of the cards, so, YEAH!

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