Terry Tao: The blue-eyed islanders puzzle

http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/the-blue-eyed-islanders-puzzle/

by kkim • 18 years ago

13 19 18 years ago

terrytao.wordpress.com

cawel• 18 years ago

Yay, I believe the narrative on that one was poor. It lacks some details and makes you ask yourself lots of questions that are not actually part of the enigma.

xkcd has the same enigma, with a better wording (with no ambiguities): http://xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html

yters3• 18 years ago

Seriously, the author says there are 2 "plausible" arguments. Obviously, he got it wrong the first time and won't let it go!

yters3• 18 years ago

Fine, they all decided to watch tv instead, since they logically know thinking could get them killed.

aston5• 18 years ago

Well, the problem is fundamentally that the people should've been playing the game before anyone said anything, so there's some confusion as to why the game only starts when the guru mentions a fact that's already self-evident.

That's a problem in both the grandparent link and xkcd's story.

DaniFong2• 18 years ago

Since consensus seems to elude the discussion here, I've made a bit of effort to distill the analysis.

If you don't want to spoil it, don't follow the link.

http://daniellefong.com/2008/02/10/blue-eyed-islanders-now-i...

zoltz4• 18 years ago

I agree with you that the original wording should have rigorously ensured common knowledge among the islanders of their logicality and devoutness, since common knowledge (of a different fact) is what the puzzle is about. But that's a subtle point and not the source of the previous disagreements here.

DaniFong2• 18 years ago

I don't know about should have. The subtle ambiguity in the wording is what makes this version of the problem interesting.

Terry Tao: The blue-eyed islanders puzzle

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