the \"yes-no mystery\" game
Eric, Digital, Maynard, 617 493-6664
at parties, or during long car rides, or with kids, or combinations of
all of that.
Here are some mysteries I know:
o A bartender serves two drinks from same liquor bottle.
One customer suspects poison, and asks partner to drink
first. Partner drinks entire drink. Suspicious customer
is now satisfied and drinks his and dies ! What happened ?
o A man is dead on the floor of a room surrounded by fifty-two
bicycles. What happened ?
o Two sailors go into a restaurant. They both order albatross
soup. One takes a single taste and runs outside and throws
up. What happened ? ** hard one **
o Two dead bodies on the floor of a room, window open, water
on floor. What happened ?
o A man takes elevator down every morning from high-rise
apartment, but takes elevator only halfway up in evening
and walks the rest of the way. Why ? ** more well known **
o Three heavy people try to crowd under one umbrella, and
nobody gets wet. ** a quickie **
As original contributor mentioned, narrator offers one of the above
stories. Then participants ask yes-no questions to figure out what
happened.
Perhaps instead of spoiling these, we could play them over the net ?
Maybe the narrator can collect a week's worth of questions and
then publish questions and answers so far in net.puzzle ? (assumedly
narrator responds DURING the week privately to the questions)
/Eric
Mitchell Marks
I sent the mystery below to Pete Olpe, who originated this discussion. Since
the topic seems to be catching interest on the net, I'll post it for general
consumption. It's the most elaborate story of this type that I know.
As <1619decwrl.DEC.COM> (sorry, I've lost your name off screen) says,
it's not obvious what procedure to use. I'll answer questions either
by mail or in net.puzzle. Considering the problems of turnaround
time, it's reasonable to allow several questions at one go.
The mystery:
One day A (you could give them names, but they wouldn't matter) mails
a package to B; it contains an arm. B receives it, opens it, glances
at the contents, wraps the package again, and mails it to C. When C
gets it, he opens it, etc, and mails it on to D. And so on, through
characters E, F, and G. When G receives the package, opens it, looks
at the contents, he discards it.
A couple of weeks later, E sees A walking down the street. E gets
very angry, yells at A, and shoots him.
The mystery question: why does E shoot A? A secondary question, which
you would probably have to answer along the way, is: why are they mailing
this arm around?
Q: Is it a human arm?
A: Yes
Q: Is it a right arm?
A: No
Q: Was B expecting the arm?
A: Yes
Q: Were they _all_ expecting the arm?
A: Yes, all those who received it were expecting an arm.
Q: What does that mean? Why are you rephrasing my question?
A: ...
Q: Do they live in the same city.
A: Not all of them.
Q: But E and A live in the same city?
A: Yes
Q: Do we care about their occupations?
A: Two of them, yes.
Q: Have E and A met before the shooting incident?
A: Oh yes.
Eventually you get to "How many arms does ___ have?" for each character,
or "Does ___ have two arms?", to keep to Y/N format. Then you're well on
your way.
I think meta-questions are acceptable, and should get honest answers
(questions like "Does it matter whether ____?"). If the questioner
skips meta-questions, and asks something whose answer is not determined
in the underlying story-answer, the narrator is free to make up anything
plausible that's consistent with the story -- this isn't cheating, or
changing things post hoc. If it's a really useful question and answer,
it may become part of the `official' story by the next time you hear
it. (I suspect this is how the occupations of two of the characters
got accreted in as part of the arm story.)
It also seems reasonable to allow questions whose answer must come from
a small set, e.g. "How many fingers did the arm have?" This avoids
the tedious transformation to "Did the arm have 5 fingers?" ... "Four?"
... "Three?" etc. But beware presupposition-failure.
Do you want to pursue this, or just see the answer?
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar
Fai Lau
> o A bartender serves two drinks from same liquor bottle.
> One customer suspects poison, and asks partner to drink
> first. Partner drinks entire drink. Suspicious customer
> is now satisfied and drinks his and dies ! What happened ?
The posion is on the glass.
>
> o A man is dead on the floor of a room surrounded by fifty-two
> bicycles. What happened ?
What do you mean? In a ROOM with bicycles INSIDE? Or is that
a HOUSE you're talking about, with the cycles OUTSIDE?
>
> o Two sailors go into a restaurant. They both order albatross
> soup. One takes a single taste and runs outside and throws
> up. What happened ? ** hard one **
He saw the albatross moved.
>
> o Two dead bodies on the floor of a room, window open, water
> on floor. What happened ?
This is a wide guess...
They lived in a house where the window was water tight.
Over one night where the house was had a flush. They woke
up and went to open the window only to let the water get
in. The water came in contact with the ac outlet and their
feet and they got electricuted.
>
> o A man takes elevator down every morning from high-rise
> apartment, but takes elevator only halfway up in evening
> and walks the rest of the way. Why ? ** more well known **
He is too short to press the higher buttons.
>
> o Three heavy people try to crowd under one umbrella, and
> nobody gets wet. ** a quickie **
It's not raining.
>
Now how about this:
A man went to visit a small deserted island which rarely gets
any visitor. He reached the island by crossing a worn wooden
bridge. He found that there was absolutely no living thing, animal
or vegetation, whatsoever. So he decided to return. But when he put his
foot on the bridge he found the bridge was about to collopse. Since the
doesn't know how to swim and the bridge was the only mean he had to return
to the main land, he was confined to the island. He didn't carry any
thing at all beside his clothings.
However, by the end of the twenty-first day he made it through the
bridge without any help. What happened?
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fai Lau |
| ECE / CS SUNYAB |
| BI: ugfailau@sunybcs |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Matthew P. Wiener
and set up some format for the way the game works, since those who know
should not ruin it for those who don't.
Thus, a posting with subject "Albatross soup" should start the puzzle, a
response with "Re: Albatross soup (?)" should be a query, and a response
with "Re: Albatross soup" should answer a query. Finally, "Re: Albatross
soup (I got it!)" should be a putative solution, perhaps encrypted.
Answers should only be of the form yes, no, irrelevant, yes but misleading,
and no but misleading. Whether only one person should supply answers is
not clear to me.
Watch what happens when I don't follow my own advice:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> o A man is dead on the floor of a room surrounded by fifty-two
>> bicycles. What happened ?
>
> What do you mean? In a ROOM with bicycles INSIDE?
You got it.
>>
>> o Two sailors go into a restaurant. They both order albatross
>> soup. One takes a single taste and runs outside and throws
>> up. What happened ? ** hard one **
>
> He saw the albatross moved.
Nope.
>> o Two dead bodies on the floor of a room, window open, water
>> on floor. What happened ?
>
> This is a wide guess...
no!
> A man went to visit a small deserted island which rarely gets
>any visitor. He reached the island by crossing a worn wooden
>bridge. He found that there was absolutely no living thing, animal
>or vegetation, whatsoever. So he decided to return. But when he put his
>foot on the bridge he found the bridge was about to collopse. Since the
>doesn't know how to swim and the bridge was the only mean he had to return
>to the main land, he was confined to the island. He didn't carry any
>thing at all beside his clothings.
> However, by the end of the twenty-first day he made it through the
>bridge without any help. What happened?
He had lost a lot of weight so he had no trouble returning.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's my contribution:
Tim and Greg were talking. Tim said "the terror of flight" and then
Greg said "the gloom of the grave", so Greg was arrested.
On what charges?
To answer the obvious question, the exact phrases matter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Those who recognize the above will of course not be so egregiously obnoxious
as to point out my source. I have made other stories of this sort from it.
ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
Bruce Holloway
>Tim and Greg were talking. Tim said "the terror of flight" and then
>Greg said "the gloom of the grave", so Greg was arrested.
>
>On what charges?
Allittering on public property.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Whatever I write are not the opinions or policies of Digital Research, Inc.,|
|and probably won't be in the foreseeable future. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Bruce Holloway
....!ucbvax!hplabs!amdahl!drivax!holloway
(I'm not THAT Bruce Holloway, I'm the other one.)
Fai Lau
> > > any visitor. He reached the island by crossing a worn wooden
> > > bridge. He found that there was absolutely no living thing, animal
> > > or vegetation, whatsoever. So he decided to return. But when he put his
> > > foot on the bridge he found the bridge was about to collopse. Since the
> > > doesn't know how to swim and the bridge was the only mean he had to return
> > > to the main land, he was confined to the island. He didn't carry any
> > > thing at all beside his clothings.
> > > However, by the end of the twenty-first day he made it through the
> > > bridge without any help. What happened?
> >
> > without breaking it. (This assumes that the bridge is not further
> > weakened during the twenty-one day stay on the island.)
> >
>
> No, he went THROUGH the bridge, and fell in the water. :-)
> --
GOOD ANSWER!! GOOD ANSWER!!! 8^) |^) 8^)
Michael C. Berch
> . . .
> o Two sailors go into a restaurant. They both order albatross
> soup. One takes a single taste and runs outside and throws
> up. What happened ? ** hard one **
Fvapr V fcrag gur orggre cneg bs na riravat fbyivat guvf bar, V srry
ragvgyrq gb cbfg na nafjre gb guvf bar. Ernq ab shegure vs lbh fgvyy
cyna gb fbyir vg lbhefrys! Urer tbrf:
Frireny zbaguf (be lrnef) rneyvre, gur fnvybe jub guerj hc unq orra ba n
fuvc va Nagnepgvp jngref. Gurer jnf n fuvcjerpx, naq znal jrer xvyyrq.
Gurer jnf ab sbbq ninvynoyr sebz gur fuvc, ohg gurer jnf shry naq fgbirf,
fb gur fheivibef pnhtug n srj nyongebffrf. Eryhpgnagyl, gurl nyfb nterrq gb
rng gur obqvrf bs gurve qrnq pbyyrnthrf. Gjb be guerr bs gur fheivibef
znqr fbzr nyongebff fgrj, naq gjb be guerr bguref znqr fgrj sebz gur
uhzna erznvaf. Gb fcner gur erznvavat fnvybef (bhe punenpgre nzbat
gurz) gur zbeny nathvfu bs pnaavonyvfz, gurl nterrq gb znxr gjb fvtaf,
bar ernqvat "nyongebff fgrj" naq gur bgure ernqvat "gur bgure fgrj".
Gura gurl enaqbzyl cbfgrq gur fvtaf fb nf gb fcner gur qvaref gur
pregnva xabjyrqtr gung gurl unq pbzzvggrq pnaavonyvfz. Bhe fnvybe
unq rngra sebz gur cbg znexrq "nyongebff fgrj".
Yngre, jura ur gnfgrq ERNY nyongebff, naq vg jnf n pbzcyrgryl
QVSRERAG gnfgr, ur fhqqrayl ernyvmrq gung ur unq va snpg rngra uhzna
syrfu ba gung sngrshy qnl va gur Nagnepgvp. Ur jnf eribygrq naq guerj hc.
-----
Michael C. Berch
ARPA: m...@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: lll-crg!lll-lcc!styx!mcb