Here's a riddle for y'all...

[jcarlson]

Pretty simple, but hey, its all I got

 

 

An Indian chief captures 3 white men and takes them into his teepee, where it is completely dark. He tells them he has 5 headbands, 3 white, and 2 red, and that he is going to put them on the men randomly, so there is 2 headbands unused. He then puts them in a line, and marches them out of the teepee, like so:

 

^ c b a

 

^ = teepee, a = first man, b = second, c = third

 

so that the third man can see the first two mens headbands, the second man can see the first man's headband, and the first man can't see anyone's headbands.

 

The chief tells the men that they only have one chance for any of the men to name the color headband on his head. If the man is wrong, they all get killed, if he is right, they all are set free. A long time passes during which the men are completely silent, then finally, one of the men correctly names the color of his headband.

 

Who was it and what color was his headband, and how did you come to that conclusion?

 

edit: please post your solutions in spoiler tags.

[Ducky Havok]

Just a guess....

[hide]Man C, because he saw that men A and B both had on red ones, so he knew his had to be white[/hide]

[Martin]

A long time passes during which the men are completely silent' date=' then finally, one of the men correctly names the color of his headband.

 

Who was it and what color was his headband, and how did you come to that conclusion?

[/quote']

 

[hide]There are only 2 red bands.

So if man C had seen TWO RED BANDS he would instantly have said "my band is white", but he does not answer for a long time so he must not be seeing two red. So man B takes a look at man A ahead of him and if he sees man A is wearing a red band and then Mr.B knows he himself is wearing white.

 

Now if it had been a VERY long time, then I would say it was man A who deduces that his band is white.

 

Man A who cannot see anything and might as well be blind, says to himself "Man C did not answer so he must not have seen two reds.

And Man B did not answer which he would have figured out already that he was wearing white if he saw a red on me. So Man B must see that I am wearing a white band and this is why he has not answered."

 

So if it is a very long wait then Man A answers and says "my band is white"

[/hide]

[jcarlson]

Ducky, the key is that a long time passes before anyone says anything.

 

Martin got it

[Ducky Havok]

Well if I hadn't read the question so fast I should have realized it wasn't that simple. I did get it after rereading it though