4 ms·

Give everyone a unique number during the planning phase. Have everyone scratch their number into the wall. Leave the light on. When all numbers are on the wall

• Ellipsis753 13y ago
  This is an amazing solution. Of course the light is needed or they couldn't see the wall!
• crazygringo 13y ago
  Heck, you don't even need to pick numbers in advance. Just pick a number the first time you go in the room, that isn't already on the wall. Or use names, symbols, it doesn't matter. Just wait until there are 99 different ones on the wall.
• FalcorTheDog 13y ago
  "they won’t be able to communicate again until the game is over." Clearly, this would be a form of communication between the prisoners.
  • comex 13y ago
    So is the light. Reminds me of this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/02/14/what-would-feynman-do.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/02/14/what-...
• shootTheHostage 13y ago
  This is a clever and practical idea, in the sense of having Indiana Jones just shoot the guy with his pistol, instead of engaging in an elaborate sword fight, but it violates the spirit of the problem. If we solved all of our problems like this, we would kill the patients instead of curing the diseases. The premise of the problem is very clear: How do you tally the presence of 100 unique events, some of which may repeat themselves, when you may use one and only one bit to register the state of the system?
  • throwaway0094 13y ago
    It depends on the disease, doesn't it? At this point (for some diseases) it's much more cost-effective to kill the patient that would have gone towards prolonging a state of suffering. Then send the funds towards Against Malaria or something else. ;-)