A Mixed Bag - Jokes, Riddles, Puzzles and Memorabilia by Raymond Smullyan

Author:Raymond Smullyan [Smullyan, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The programmer took out his laptop computer and worked on it for about an hour but got nowhere. And so he gave the engineer fifty dollars. The engineer put the money in his pocket and said nothing. A bit miffed, the programmer said: “Well, what’s the answer?” The engineer then handed him five dollars.

Suppose I make you the following offer: I hand you two ten dollar bills and tell you that I am to make a statement. If the statement is false, then you must promise to give me back one of the bills and keep the other, but if the statement is true, you are to keep both bills. This sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? Would you accept the offer? If you did, you certainly shouldn’t, for reasons you will soon see. At one lecture I gave to a group of logic students, I asked if any one would accept the above offer. One student accepted. I then handed him two ten dollar bills and made a statement such that the only way he could keep to the agreement was to pay me a thousand dollars! (Another instance of coercive logic.) Can you figure out what such a statement could be? I’ll tell you later.

I then told the poor student that I felt really sorry that I played such a nasty con trick on him, and to make amends, I would give him back his thousand dollars providing he would answer me a yes/no question truthfully. He agreed. I then asked a question such that the student, according to the agreement, owed me, not a thousand dollars, but a million dollars! What statement would work? (I’ll tell you later.)

At that point I said that I was thoroughly ashamed of myself for playing such a foul con game, and so I would now give him a chance to win back his million dollars in such a way that it was not possible for me to con him again— namely I would give him back his million dollars and again ask him a yes/no question, but this time, he would not even have to answer truthfully—his answer could be either true or false, as he pleased. “Obviously,” I said, “there is no possible way I could con you now. Right?” The students all agreed that, under those circumstances, there is no way I could now con him. And so he agreed. However, there is a way I could con him! I phrased the question so that he now owed me, not a million dollars, but a billion dollars! How is that possible? (Answer given shortly.)

I then said: “Today I am in a generous mood, and so I will give you a fifty percent chance of winning your billion dollars back, but for this I charge a nickel extra! Are you willing to pay a nickel for a fifty percent chance of winning back your billion dollars?” (This of course gets a good general laugh.) Of course he accepted, and

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