What a fun puzzle! The "ah-ha" moment is realizing that the brains of the prisoners can be be used to store the state, and not just the panel of switches. My in

What a fun puzzle! The "ah-ha" moment is realizing that the brains of the prisoners can be be used to store the state, and not just the panel of switches. My initial reaction was to think about the storage capacity of the switch panel, and immediately hit a wall because clearly you can't store 26 bits in 2 switches. So you have to go hunting for another place to maintain state - and of course in the head of one of the prisoners is a great place!