My friend was asked this question at MSFT:
Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?
24,759 Views |
Nothing happens. The queen does not tell the wives anything they don’t already know. They know that the other husbands are cheating, so it is not new news to them.
Nothing will happen until the 100th day, when all the wives kill their husbands on the same day.
After queen announces, the same night nothing happens. Now the next days the wife of the unfaithful husband knows that no one else is killed, so her husband is unfaithful and kills him
If there are m husbands who cheated, all of them will be killed on the m-th day.
why the mth day? “One day” doesn’t ever to a spacifice point it’s just a saying to get the story moving.
Since every man has cheated, we know that every woman has had the feeling a man is cheating.
There are two possiblites depending on what the Queen does next.
If she demands that the husband(s) who were cheating be killed, then ask each woman how many times they senced a man cheating the night before: If n men cheated, all women should say n, except the wives of the n men, who will say n-1. Thus we know it’s the husbands of those women who cheated. This solution will work provided no men cheated at the exact time…unless women’s 6th sence can tell them the difference between the men.
If she demands nothing and leaves, then the women might very well live their lives as they are as men seem rare in this world and the women need their men around to do things like take out the trash, do the dishes, and kill bugs
As queen has declared, all the 100 women will get together & ask each other, whose husband has cheated. As husband alone can’t be involved in cheating, the women who has slept with her,will know which one has cheated. So all the women will point to those husbands & inform respective wives, that that particular husband has cheated. So she will kill him. So all the cheater husbands will be killed in one day..
mth day because the queen says “at least one person has cheated”.. She never said all 100 of them cheated..
The one woman who does not know of the cheating man that day kills her own husband since every woman knows, execpt the wife of the cheating husband, who has cheated.
Assume women dont communicate with each other.
Not all women may have cheated. Those that have will know there is at least one man besides her husband who has cheated, therefore she will never kill her husband. Those women who have not cheated will end up killing their husbands, thinking that it must be their husband since no other man had been killed.
If the queen announces that someone has cheated then we have to assume that this is a fact. Hence the wife who cannot identify the cheating husband can be sure that it is her husband who has cheated. Hence she kills him. Kinda brutal way to test logic but, oh well.
The law says: “Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day”
hmm …. I think the queen’s announcement is not a prove against any man …… so nothing happens
All husband who lie will die on the mth day.
Suppose 1 husband cheated.
On the first day. The wife see no other husband cheat, she would know her husband cheat, so she will kill her husband.
Suppose 2 husband (A and B) cheated.
On the first day. Wife A know Husband B cheated, and Wife B know Husband A cheated, so they thought that their husband did not cheat and only 1 husband cheated. After the first day, no husband die. Therefore, they know that the number of husband cheat is 2, so they kill their husbands.
Similarly, if m husband cheat, all of them would be killed on mth day.
All the wives will congregate and gossip to one another. They will eventually figure out who did not “know” that another man had committed adultery. She then kills her husband. The END.
Well, since women gossip so much, and they are all trying to figure out if it’s their husband, they will probably start talking about their infidelities with the other women’s husbands. Soon, they realize that n amount of men (depending on who confesses) have cheated and n amount of men will be killed.
Wow everyone is really analyzing this wrong. Especially the m’th day people; that is ridiculous.
Two cases:
1. Queen proves it:
The Queen is married since she knows that there is “at least one” man cheating (she actually knows 99 people cheating exactly). If the Queen reveals the 99 men cheating and PROVES it to them, every husband in the village (every man since there is only 100 couples in the village and NO more) dies, even the King! (assuming someone proves to the Queen his hubby has been unfaithful).
2. Queen doesn’t prove anything to wives:
We still know the Queen is married since she knows there are “at least one” husband(s) cheating.
Noone dies and the village goes on as normal since all the women know 99 husbands cheating but don’t care since it’s not their own husband. They even know the King is cheating on the Queen!
Short answer: Nothing will happen for the first 100 days. On the 100th day, all 100 women will kill their husbands, assuming they are good at deductive logic.
Gossip and further communication among the wives is un-necessary.
Imagine a smaller case, of two women and two husbands in the village. If one husband had not cheated, then the wife of the other husband would know that it must be her husband that had cheated, and she would kill him the very first day. The first day passes and no husband has been killed. So now, both wives know that their husband has cheated, and so both wives kill both husbands on day 2.
Now imagine the three wives & three husbands case. At the end of day 1, there are three pairs of wives, and within each pair, both know that one of their husbands has cheated, because if neither had cheated, the third wife would know that only her husband could have cheated and she would have killed him. To state it another way, at the end of day 1 everybody knows at least two husbands have cheated, because if only 1 had cheated, there would be no ambiguity for one wife, and she’d do the killing. For each pair of wives, they now know at least one of their husbands has cheated, and this has “diminished” to our previous case of two wives and two husbands. Day two passes and nobody gets killed. On the third day everybody knows that all 3 husbands have cheated.
Extending the reasoning to the N=100 case, and on day 100, all 100 husbands die in a blaze of ignomy. Probably while drinking cocoanut liquor and playing shuffleboard with pineapple slices.
On the 100th day, the wife’s will their respective husbands…
Just want to clarify something..leonard ur assumption should also include that there should be only and only one husband cheating a day.Can you provide a solution when there are more than one husband cheating on there wives a day..??waiting for your reply..
Fact 1: All 100 men have cheated.
Fact 2: All 100 women know that 99 men have cheated.
All else is speculation
If we assume that the women are communicating what they know to each other, then they must all kill their husbands simply because the union of all known cheaters is 100.
Therefore assume that they don’t talk (as if that would ever happen) then when the queen, who may and probably isn’t one of the 100 women, tells them that at least one husband has been unfaithful, they are not being told anything new, so nothing happens. And nothing continues to happen, since women are not logical creatures; they are emotional, that’s why they kill their unfaithful husbands if they could ever prove it
IM: There is no assumption needed in Leonard’s solution that exactly one husband cheats per day. They have all already cheated, and the period of time over which it occurred is not relevant.
100 men are guilt (they have all cheated). They will only be killed if their wifes can prove it. We don’t know how many couples that were originally in the village, but there are only 100 left. We do know that villages, queens, and death penalties for adultery are from a time or culture where women depended on their husbands for survival.
Logical, the queen comes to town and all the wifes stays home and the queen leaves the village. The wifes know that if none of the wife talk to each other no one can prove anything and the wifes and the village survive.
I think all the men die on the 2nd day.
On the 1st day, all women will see that every other man is guilty and will assume that their man is not and will expect all the other men to die that day. On the next day, when no man dies, then every women will know that their man is guilty and will kill them. All the men die.
Let’s assume (for the sake of simplicity) that there are 2 couples in the village, not 100.
The queen announces “there is at least one man who is cheating”.
On the same day both women think “I can’t prove that my husband is cheating, because I know that the other one is cheating. It’s possible that the queen is talking about him”.
On the next day, each of the women notices that the other women’s husband is still alive. Each of them is able to reason: “The other woman’s husband is still alive. So she was not able to prove that he was guilty. But the queen said there is at least one cheater. So she must have been sure that MY husband was the cheater. I have to kill my husband!”.
So, in the case of two couples, both women kill their husbands the next day. You can extend this reasoning to 100 couples and prove that every woman kills her husband 100 days after the queen’s announcement (do it yourself
)
My concise solution to this problem:
Let’s prove that in a village with n couples all husbands die on day n, where day 1 is the day of the queen’s visit.
If there is one couple in the village, then the husband dies on the same day (obvious).
If there are n couples, for n>1, then, by not killing her husband every woman “announces” that there is a cheater in every n-1 - sized subset of all husbands (”I didn’t kill my husband! There exists another cheater!”). But we already know, by induction, what happens in that subset :D. It just happens one day later. QED
Sidenote: if men are smart, nobody gets killed, they escape one day before.
The question states that all men in the village have cheated so when the queen announces that atleast one husband has cheated, all men in the village panic because they know that they have cheated and will be killed! So the same day all men disappear i.e run away from the village !!
I have a different approach.
Lets say there is one cheater in n men.
Fact 1) As soon as a man cheats every women (except his wife) instantly knows about the cheater.
When queen announces one cheater. 99 women know about the cheater except one woman for whom this is a new information. She knows all other men are faithful so its her husband who is cheating and she kills him.
Now consider a case where there are 2 (lets say A,B) cheaters.
First day nobody kills.
Second day A’s wife would think 98 men are sure faithful, my husband is doubtful and B’s husband is cheater but since B didnt get killed, B’s wife knows that my husband is cheat since she also knows that those 98 men are faithful.
Same thinking goes with B and so second day A and B get killed.
Now starts the fun
Lets say there are 3 cheaters (A,B,C).
First day nobody gets killed.
A’s wife already knows that B and C are cheat. She can think B is expecting C to be killed and hence B didnt kill her husband. At the same time A’s wife can think C’s wife is expecting B to get killed and hence didnt kill her own husband.
B’s wife is thinking the same way about A and C.
C’s wife is thinking the same way about A and B.
Rest of the women folk can think of it like a cyclic dependency. i.e. A waiting for B to get killed, B waiting for C to get killed and C waiting for A to get killed.
Summary: if there are more then 3 cheaters (in the absence of further communication) nobody would get killed.
My answer is all the 100 cheated men die on the 2nd day.
On the 1st day, when queen annouce that atleast one man cheated, all women think that their husband is not guilty and will expect that other men to die that day. On the next day, when no man dies, then every women will know that their man is guilty and will kill them. All the 100 men die. Poor fellows…….
Since the Queen anounced it-she does know because she is equally guilty! Since she stated there is at least 1 man really means more than 1.
The woman who doesn’t instantly know a husband cheated needs to kill her husband. 99 women (all but her) know he did it and thus she concludes that he is the slimy bastard.
Wow, only 1 person with the right answer. The answer is on the second day all 100 husbands die. The explanation is below:
This question is actually a special case of the game “do you know the color of your card?” The game goes as follows:
-There is a questioner and a group of people.
-The questioner gives everyone in the group a card from a deck.
-Each person in the group stands in a circle and holds up a card on their fore head so everyone else can see it but him/her-self.
-The questioner guaranties that AT LEAST ONE of the cards are red (and this is true for the game to work).
-Then the questioner picks a member of the group and asks them if they know what color their card is.
-The questioner asks the same question to each group member (in the same order) and continues to do so until everyone knows the color of their card.
E.g. if there were 2 people and 1 red card, the questioner asks person A if he knows what his card is. Person A looks at Person B’s red card and says no. Then the questioner asks Person B and she says yes. Person B knew her card was red because she saw person A had a black card, so hers had to be red. If they were both red, the Person A would say no, but B would say yes because she knew A would only have said yes if her card was black, therefore making it red.
The cheating problem is like the case where everyone has a red card. The queen told everyone of at least 1 husband cheated (at least 1 red card), but every wife can only see everyone else’s red cards. Every day no one is killed is the same thing as the queen asking if they can prove their husband was cheating on her and she said no.
A couple things to note:
-It says 1 day the queen visited the village, so it is implied she does NOT live there and therefore isn’t part of the 100 couples.
- If there is at least 1 black card, someone else will be able to determine that theirs is red before the first round is over. This could be proved with strong induction, but I am not going to. If you disbelieve me, try it out with small groups (between 3-6) and various amount of red cards. Make a table that counts minimum number of times the question is asked with rows being the# of group members and columns being the # of red cards.
- The only way no one can know what their card color is during the first round occurs when everyone has a red card. The only exception to this is with just 2 people.
On the first day no one would have proof. Since no one would get killed, every wife realized that no wife could PROVE her husband is guilty. Just like the card game, each wife knew that every other husband was guilty. Assuming the wives were masters in logic, they would all realize that this scenario can only exist if every husband is guilty. Thus on the second day, each wife had the proof and executed their husband.
nothing will happen….the question is very vague… the proper action is to clarify rules…if not given better rules, but expected some “cool” answer, learn about assumptions which interviewer thinks are “cool”…
Short answer: Nothing happens. I simplified the village down to 2 couples and worked back up from there.
CASE 1: Two Couples, One Cheater
HA HB
\
WA WB
Let’s start with a simplified two-couple scenario. You can use my little diagram above as a visual guide. Husband A cheats with Wife B. Husband B stays faithful. When the queen comes, Wife A will know that Husband B was faithful because she never slept with him. That leaves only one cheater in the community. Bye bye Husband A.
CASE 2: Two Couples, Two Cheaters
HA HB
X
WA WB
What happens when both husbands cheat in the simple scenario? Wife A now cheats with Husband B. Wife B cheats with Husband A. Wife A isn’t so sure any more about the fidelity of Husband B. The queen could be talking about her husband (Husband A), Husband B, or both.
Wife A picks up a clue from the behavior of Wife B. If Wife B kills her husband (Husband B), it means that Wife B never slept with Husband A. Husband A was faithful. If Husband B is still alive at midnight, it means that Wife B slept with Husband A. Just like Wife A, Wife B isn’t sure about who the cheater is. When Husband B lives, Wife A will realize that her husband (Husband A) was cheating and kill him on Day 2.
What about Wife B in this scenario? By virtue of the fact that Husband B lived for an extra day, Wife B knows that Wife A hesitated. Wife A must have been sleping with Husband B. Husband B has to go too. Bye bye to both husbands as of day 2.
CASE 3: Three Couples, Three Cheaters
This one is too complex to draw with a text diagram. If all the men are cheating, there are two potential scenarios: (a) one wife is being faithful (Wife C for argument’s sake); or (b) every man is cheating with every wife.
Let’s start with the first scenario. Going back to Case 1, Wife A was able to figure out her husband (Husband A) was a cheater because Husband B had to be faithful. In Case 3, there are two husbands for Wife C to account for. Either one of them could be cheating with one of the other wives. Therefore, she’s not able to draw any conclusions about her own husband (Husband C). Husband C lives.
Continuing with the first scenario, Wives A and B each know that they were cheating with another husband. The information from the queen is not a surprise. All the husbands live.
The second scenario is similar to the first. All wives know that one of the husbands is cheating because they are doing the cheating. The queen does not provide any new information. The husbands live.
So bottom line: when the queen makes the announcement to village with 100 couples, the outcome will be the same as Case 3. Everybody continues to live and cheat happily ever after.
I think out of the way the question has been asked we cannot infer anything, and the interviewer would expect the candidate to go ahead and ask the questions. Mainly:
1. What means “Prove” and what means “Proof”? Is the proof the statement of some other woman “this guy had relationships with me”?
2. Will the husband be questioned by his wife? When the husband is asked by his wife, does he have to answer?
3. When a wife asks another wife, does the other wife have to tell the truth on what she knows? If she can ask some other wife, we need to have the wives social network and sequence of asking (say, based on the number or a name).
4. What is the behavior of a husband/wife when the queen announces the fact?
And so on, and go ahead based on the answers.
wives will feel pity on queen.. as each of them know more than one cheater.. and some feel more pity as they even know that it is her husband cheating her.. [:p]
1) If there is only one couple in the village, then there is only no other woman other than the wife and therefore there is no way that the husband would have cheated.
2) If there are two couples, the only way the husband would have cheated is with the wife of the other couple. So, both the wifes are guilty and they wont open their mouth.
3) If there are n couples in the village, each wife knows that (n-1) husbands have cheated. So, the queen’s announcement is not news to them. If the wives are NOT allowed to communicate, then since they dont know if their own husband has cheated, they cannot prove it, so nobody gets killed. However, if the wives are allowed to communicate, each wife will be able to prove that (n-1) husbands have cheated and therefore each wife can prove that their own husband has cheated and subsequently all husbands will be killed on the same day.
Now all they have is a village full of women, of which at least one woman is unfaithful.
The one wife that is unaware of any instances of cheating will then kill her husband since if they are aware of cheating unless it is thier own, 99 wives will know who the cheater is and the cheater wife will have no knowledge, therefore determining that her husband is the cheater.
Read the question carefully. It says “Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. ”
That means every wife knows that every man in the village but his own husband (99 of them) has cheated. When the queen says that at least one has cheated, it is not news for any of the wives, since every wife already know every husband except but her own has cheated. In other words, every wife has a list of 99 names in their list of cheaters. But none of them knows how many cheaters are there is every wife’s list.
All a wife has to do to prove that her husband has cheated is to show that there is atleast one other woman with a list of 99 cheaters. This will basically mean that these two wifes have list of all husbands names except their own.
Fact 1: There are 100 couples including King and queen
Fact 2: All 100 men have cheated.
Fact 3: All 100 women know that 99 men have cheated.
Try to find the solution in simple logical steps
Question : Atlest One men has cheated.
1 : Only one men cheated -
In this all the 99 women will know that who has cheated. But wife will not be able to get the answer. So she may kill her husband on fact that “atleast one has chaeted and I found no among rest 99 men”
So accused will be killed.
2 : More than one men has cheated-
In this case every wife will find atleast one men who has done cheating. So they will trust their respective husbands and no one will be killed on same day.
In this Case On day 2 :
Since nobody knows exact numbers of men who have cheated, All men will be alive.
Assuming that wifes does have high IQ level of Mr James Bond. who can dig depper and find the right number of culprits by simple logics by suspecting their own husbands too!!!!! (This we cannot assume as this is not given in Problem)
It takes 100 days for the wives to figure out that all the husbands have cheated. Leonard’s post (#19) correctly uses induction to reason this out.
There is no way to figure it out on the second day as some have postulated. If none of the wives could figure out if their husband was guilty on the first day, that doesn’t mean that all the husbands are guilty. Ben Dover’s analogy with the red card game uses faulty logic. A wife cannot figure out if she holds a red card if *any* of the other wives’ cards are red, not if *all* of the cards are red. So if no husband dies on the first, it only proves that at least one of the husbands is guilty, not that all of them are guilty.
Fact 1:
Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife.
->how come not even a single man dead so far.
That’s ‘coz everytime a man cheats, only 99 women know that fact. The wife of the adulterer is not at all aware of her husband’s adultery and thus doesn’t kill him. So, so far all men are enjoying there lives despite their adultery.
Fact 2:
One day, the queen of the village visits and announce that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?
-> Now since the queen is visiting, she is not among the inhabitants of the village.
She reveals the fact that one husband has cheated.
Now, this fact, which is revealed by the queen is already known to 99 woman(fact 1) except the adulterer’s wife. She would come to know instantly that her husband is the ONE because if her husband were not the adulterer, she would already know it. She would kill his husband immediately. Only the adulterer dies.
By the way, queen proposed the dead man in her early life and the man denied. It was her revenge.
Enjoy…
well maybe all the wives have cheated as well… who are these husbands cheating with? maybe they’ll just keep quiet. because they don’t want for the others to find out it was them…
Each wife knows of 99 cheating husbands (all except her own husband). If her husband were innocent, then according to her the other wives would know of 98 cheating husbands (i.e. her husband and their own).
She would expect that on the 99th day, the other wives would all kill their husbands. However since none did, this proves that they too know of 99 cheating husbands. So her husband must be a cheat too. So on the 100th day, all the men are killed. Muhahahaha.
The queen is visting , that means she is 101st person in the village. So the woman who doesn’t know her husband cheated slept with the queen,hence he will be the one killed.
One man gets killed if there was only one cheater.
The wife which knows no one man have cheated this day, can prove the man announced by queen is her husband.
If there were two or more cheaters, no one gets killed.
Assumptions:
- Queen is one of the 100 women (b’coz she’s “the queen of the village”).
- The news (or announcement) from the Queen is the most recent incident (i.e., list night’s).
Because “EVERY WIFE… INSTANTLY KNOWS” when someone cheats, the cheated woman will realize that it was her husband that cheated (coz, she does not know of anyone that cheated that night and if it was other husband she would have known, so it gotta be her husband). So she’ll kill her husband.
Perhaps none will die. It says, any woman that can PROVE their husband has cheated. Each woman knows that every other man is cheating and cheating of course implies lying. So how could the wives prove it? In this case, the queen is telling them nothing new and therefore wouldn’t inspire any further speculation from these women. In either case. All men will live or all men will die.
1) 100th day, m’th day or whatever is irrelevant; all husbands can very well cheat on their wives at the exact same time.
2) What logic tells us is that all women will realize all men are guilty. Here is the reasoning using every part of the problem.
fact A: all husbands have cheated their wives.
fact B: all wives know when someone else’s husband has cheated his wife.
conclusion: all wives know of 99 adultery cases. Can any wife prove anything? no, because they don’t know if their husband is one of the 99.
further thinking A: if any wife knew that any other wife knows of 99 adultery cases, they could all deduce that each husband has cheated, and all would have been killed already. So, wives don’t know exactly how many adultery cases are known by other wives. A safe assumption if that they can tell if a husband is killed, though.
further thinking B: so far, no wife has killed their husband. This means that no wife can prove that their husband has cheated.
Fact C: women of the village would never disobey the law.
so when the Queen announces that one man has cheated, all women agree that this man should be killed, as all believe their own husband may be innocent and should be spared, or is guilty or should be killed.
after the announcement, each wife goes home and tells their husband, “we’ll have an execution soon, because it’s been proven that one husband has cheated his wife. In fact, I’ll tell you what. I know that every husband but you has cheated his wife. I’m so glad it’s not you.”. Each husband then realizes that every man is the village is an adulterer.
yet, immediately after the announcement, no husband is killed - because no wife can prove their husband is guilty.
But because they cannot disobey the law, wives need to find the culprit. They all accuse couple 1, because no one liked them anyway. “Nonsense, says wife 1. My husband is innocent! but I have proof of 99 “other” adultery cases. So it is your husbands that must die!” To that, wife 2 answers: “is that so? I also happen to know of 99 adultery cases. this means that YOUR husband is guilty. But… so is mine!” Then, all wives find out at the same time that all of their husbands are guilty.
This is where logic breaks, because if 100 unprepared women can’t execute 100 prepared men.
Women then stop to think and realize that if they killed all men, they kill their husbands and their lovers, plus they would have to fix everything in the house themselves, they would have to help their kids with math, take out the garbage, pay the rent on their own, and have no one to yell at all day. They also realize that up to now, they have lived happily together and that, all in all, they too have been unfaithful… Then, one wife suggests to abandon this dumb law. They put this measure to the vote and most agree. Having tasted democracy, and having realized how it prevented a major disaster, they find out they don’t need that bitching queen and they throw her out of the village, and instead elect a mayor and live happily ever after.
warning: not a programming approach.
100 husbands live, 100 wives live, they are happy.
And one day queen comes (queen of the village, but visits from outside)
And tells to everyone the thing was not told in centuries, that at least one man cheated. Until this day no one told to all village about their thoughs. She is the queen she must be trustworthy, she tells the true. If queen is an outsider (by visiting, it is revealed, she leaves in a castle!!) the only way she should know who cheated would be the case “she, her majesty, cheated with one or more husbands”. “The village has a law that does not allow for adultery.” This should be true for both women and men, although only women’s part is stated. Women tell the king, if he lives (probably queen killed him), about queen’s cheat… If law is law… Queen should be punished.. If queen is the law, law is no more..
nothing. Everyone is forgetting the Queen is a woman and hence a potential cheater. Nothing happens! Why? Because the Queen makes the total number of women 101. Consider the case of 2 couples in the village (the total number of women is 3). The Queen comes to town and cheats with two men on the same day. [The Queen is not currently married (maybe the King died of cancer, whatever) and thus starved for male companionship.] Then she makes her announcement: “At least one man has cheated.” Each of the village women thinks “I did not cheat. But I know the other husband cheated today so he must have cheated with the Queen and hence is the man the Queen references.” Everyone is happy in their ignorance.
Nothing happens. The law is that the wife must kill him if she can PROVE he has cheated THAT VERY DAY. She can’t ever prove that he cheated on the day he did because she can not tell when her husband has, only when other men have. When the queen says at least ONE husband HAS BEEN unfaithful, she is not saying anything any of the women didn’t already know of the other men. She can’t assume her husband was one of these men, until the next day, when no men have been killed. But by then, she cannot kill him because it isn’t abiding by the law that “Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day.”
“Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has” …. means that before queen’s announcement 99 out of 100 women know that one husband has cheated (other than her own) .
The only women who doesn’t know that someone has cheated is the women whose own husband has cheated.
So After queen’s announcement that women will be sure that it is here husband who cheated ( because if it is not her husband she should have come to know before queen’s announcement….). And Queen’s announcement is proof.
So the husband who cheated would be killed…
—————
PS : I dont see any point in question which may lead to nth day or mth day…. ( so those of you who has answered for mth day or nth day is baseless…)
The queen announced that there was one man who cheated. She already knows who it is but wants further proof.
Every women in the village knows who it is too. The next day when the Queen finds out that no one has been killed, she has her proof.
It is the king because what women in their right mind would turn down the King and risk being beheaded!!! Besides the Queen already has someone else in mind for her consort!
If the Queen does not name the cheater(s) every one lives.
If the Queen insist that someone is punished for adultery every wife in the village will answer I have no proof on my husband so i can not kill him. Even if low requires punishment for adultery it also requires a wife to have prove on her husband. So 100 wifes will ask the Queen to prove her statement or shut up. Only difference Queens visit makes is that Queen is the person representing the low and might insist on finding guilty ones. Otherwise wifes knows the same fact before Queens visit and no one is killed. They also knows that every 99 other wifes are cheated but they don’t have a prove on theirs own husbands so therefore the bastards lives.
facts:
1. every man in village cheated
2 every wife instantly knows when a man has cheated, other than own husband
3. women of village would never disobey adultery law
The husband of the wife(s) who cannot proclaim to know if a man has cheated is put to death.
Why? Queen proclaims she knows of at least one man who cheated. So wife of couple 1 grabs husbands hand and proclaims to know of a man who cheated (thus eliminating own husband). Wife of couple two grabs husbands hand and proclaims to know of a man that cheated (eliminating own husband). This continues until we have a wife who cannot proclaim to know of a man that cheated. Which means she has never cheated herself and thus cannot save own husband.
So I guess the moral of the story is, it really does pay to cheat
The length of time it takes before something happens is irrelevant to the question, so I will not assume any length of time.
The question states that all men have cheated, not that only one man cheated (which is what the queen knows).
The question also does not require that anything happen as a result of the queen’s anouncement that at least one husband cheated.
Two possibilities may occur: the first is that nothing will happen. The wives do not converse with each other about the queen’s announcement and no investigation is made, life continues as it always has in a town full of 100 unfaithful men. The second is that the women all discuss the queen’s theory with each other and investigate and begin talking about the men who have been unfaithful (remember the question does specify that each wife is aware of every cheating husband in town except her own). Also, note that the question does not state that any other people, besides the 100 married couples, live in this town. Because of this, each of the cheating husbands has been cheating with a married woman. Thus, when all of the wives discuss what they know about the cheating husbands, it can be proved that each husband was a cheater. Every wife would then have authority to kill her spouse and all men could be exterminated from the town.
Twisted question.
Since all the wives know exactly the number of cheating husbands (except their own husband), each wife should call out the number (of cheating husbands) they know.
All the wives whose husbands have cheated will report a number 1 less than the wives whose husbands have not cheated.
The wives who reported 1 less number will kill their husbands - knowing that its is her husband that cheated.
That depends… The queen only says that one man HAS been unfaithful, which all the women in the village already knows.
The law says that the wives have to kill their husband the same day, and since the riddle doesn’t mention anything about there being committed adultery every night, no wife can be certain that their husband committed adultery last day/night when they see that no other wife has killed their husband, since 1) that is no guarantee that her husband was unfaithfull and 2) even if he was unfaithfull, its to late, it happened yesterday…
So the answer is nothing would happen. Whether there is committed adultery every day/night or not, no one will ever get killed because of the law about having to kill their husband the same day. This is because the action of punishing/killing their husband is totally dependant on what the other wives do to their husbands (remember all wives know if other wives’ husband cheats, but not their own). By the time they need to find out if it’s their husband that cheated, the day would have already passed, and its too late to punish their husband… Therefor, no one would ever be punished… Kinda like catch 22
> On the next day, each of the women notices that the other women’s husband is still alive. Each of them is able to reason: “The other woman’s husband is still alive. So she was not able to prove that he was guilty. But the queen said there is at least one cheater. So she must have been sure that MY husband was the cheater. I have to kill my husband!”.
I don’t see this. We are given only that IF a man is unfaithful, then his non-wives know that. This does not entail that wives are infallble about fidelity. This condition is compatible with a wife believing falsely that a man is unfaithful.
Thus in the two person case, Wife1 knows Man2 is unfaithful, Wife2 knows Man1 is unfaithful. A day after the Queen’s information Wife1 says, hm, seems Wife2 could not prove that cheater Man2 is unfaithful. Yet she should know (assuming she believes the Queen) that at least one man is unfaithful. What is she thinking! She must believe that my husband Man1 is the unfaithful one. But my hubby would never do that! The poor deluded creature, she doesn’t know it is her own husband who is the unfaithful one.
Nothing in the given condition rules that out that I can see.
Facts:
which everyone seems to neglect :(………
1. There are 100 couples.
2. Every man in village has cheated his wife.
3. women of village would never disobey adultery law
4. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day.
5. Every wife instantly knows when a man has cheated, other than own husband => every wife knows 99 others are cheats (thinking every other wife knows only 98 are cheats assuming her husband is honest)
6.Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has.
=> This is an important piece of data
Assuming all men cheated on some day say ‘n’. All wifes will kill their own husband on n +99 day for obvious reasons….wait the answer ain’t complete yet….
The public announcement of Queen is of absolutely no use ;)……
SOLUTION:
Now every wife has an important piece of data i.e. the last day when the 99th husband cheated. So, for a wife to kill her husband the logic is, if today is last_date_of_99th_Husband_Cheating_As_Per_Her_Knowledge + 99 (taking 5th point i.e. wife thinking every other wife knows only 98 are cheats assuming her husband is honest) kill my husband :(……..
So a wife would kill her husband on 99th day from the last_cheated_date she knows…so when this starts all the husband are killed on the same day…..as wife (if intelligent) should know why a lady killed her husband………….as simple as that :)…..
My question is, how the Queen came to know about this fact….time for the King to change the rule ;)……
I think m correct…….please let me know if I am wrong…..I have an MS exam to attend on 5th of this month
Facts:
1. There are 100 couples.
2. Every man in village has cheated his wife.
3. women of village would never disobey adultery law
4. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day.
5. Every wife instantly knows when a man has cheated, other than own husband => every wife knows 99 others are cheats (thinking every other wife knows only 98 are cheats assuming her husband is honest)
6.Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has.
=> This is an important piece of data.
Assuming all men cheated on some day say ‘n’. All wifes will kill their own husband on n +99 day for obvious reasons….The public announcement of Queen is of absolutely no use ;)……
ACTUAL SOLUTION (as what will happen in that village):
Now every wife has an important piece of data i.e. the last day when the 99th husband cheated. So, for a wife to kill her husband the logic is, if today is last_date_of_99th_Husband_Cheating_As_Per_Her_Knowledge + 99 (taking 5th point i.e. wife thinking every other wife knows only 98 are cheats assuming her husband is honest) kill my husband ……..
So a wife would kill her husband on 99th day from the last_cheated_date she knows…so when this starts all the husbands are killed on the same day…..as wife (if intelligent) should know why a lady killed her husband….she would have known that the lady who killed her husband from 99th day when he cheated her, knew that her husband is a cheat.
Nothing happens.
>>Every wife in the village INSTANTLY knows when a
>> man other than her husband has cheated
When every lady can instantly know the culprit, why they need to wait for Queen’s Statement.
Also, the puzzle doesn’t say that, no lady will ever complaint about the culprit.
The next day when none of the other husbands have been killed, each wife will assume that it was their husband that cheated, thus each wife will kill their husband.
Assumption:
1) Queen is not among the 100 wives, because “visiting” a village implies one does not live there.
Answer:
Any wife who doesn’t know her husband slept with the Queen kills her husband that day.
Because of assumption 1), the Queen does not have this “special” ability to know instantly who cheated on who, therefore the Queen would only know a village husband cheated if it was the Queen herself who was the mistress.
Leave an Answer/Comment