Posted by Frank H on February 26, 2003 at 09:25:35 from 209.216.167.237
In Reply to: Car Talk puzzler from hell ! posted by Peter Claassen on February 25, 2003 at 22:43:49:
the problem with the answer is that if you have one prisoner as a counter and he has to be chosen 44 times.... it might take longer than the prisoners lives to get out of prison.
Someone on the 2002 BB posted that the warden would have to randomly chose the prisoners over 1,000 times before that would happen.
Not knowing how long between the warden picks (it could be years or minutes?) means they easily could be in the their whole lives + some.
I'd thought of that answer right away but disgarded it, being it takes too long.
So there really isn't an answer.
What's the answer to this weeks puzzle?
Frank