Harder Interview Question #2

[dansalmo]

Hi Slickpoppa,

This is a really cool problem. I still have not seen an aswer in terms of when things happen. I think that it takes 50 days of no killings or everyone to conclude what must be done and then they all act simultaneously.

Is this the case?

[Rasputin]

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I still have not seen an aswer in terms of when things happen.

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Go back and read the thread then.

[slogger]

On Day 50, assuming the queen's pronouncement occurred on Day 1. All 50 women would kill their husbands.

If only one man (not more) had been unfaithful, that man's wife would've known about it immediately upon hearing the queen's statement and killed him that day. This is because she would not have heard about any cheating husbands from another villager and, being perfectly logical, would deduce that her husband was the guilty party because if it was not her husband, she would have heard about it. The next day, all of the other women would know Wife 1 had killed her husband, and therefore, that their husbands had been faithful. They would know that the only way for the now-widow to have known her husband cheated would be if she had never heard of another man cheating.

Since there were 50 husbands that had cheated, the wives of those men would not immediately know that their husband had cheated because each would have heard of 49 acts of unfaithfulness. However, after 49 days had passed with no husband killing, each woman would now know that all 50 husbands had cheated and kill her husband.

[slogger]

[EDIT: What I say below is wrong - you are right - the queeen is necessary because each woman needs to know that each other woman knows that a certain number of men have been unfaithful before there can be any women who are able to prove after N days, that their husband cheated. I will leave up my misguided ramblings, as self-punishment [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]]

gm, this is not right.

See me response to Paul's earlier post above.

The queen's annoncement would only be news if it came on the same day that the 50th man finally took a mistress.

Otherwise, the "knowledge clock," as you so aptly put it, would already have been running.

Real Day 1 = the first day that there are no more faithful men in the village.

[TimmyMayes]

I think all men would die the day after the announcement....the original poster said all women know of the killings the instant they happen. When it is decreed that at least one man has been unfaithful you have a situation where everyone is waiting for someone to be killed THAT day as the law says but no one was now at 12:00:01 A chain reaction of killings occur leaving all men decimated.

Cheers,
Timothy

[gaming_mouse]

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I think all men would die the day after the announcement....the original poster said all women know of the killings the instant they happen.

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You are right that "the instant they happen" makes things confusing. It raises the question of, How long do they wait before they interpret another woman's not killing her husband as the needed evidence about their own husband?

The question would be clearer if the law was: If a woman finds incontrovertible evidence that her husband has cheated, she will kill him at midnight. When a man is killed, all women are notified the following morning. Then the intended answer that everyone is killed on night 50 works.