Four Men in Hats

Before you look up the answer, see if you can figure out this puzzle:

Shown above are four men buried up to their necks in the ground. They cannot move, so they can only look forward. Between A and B is a brick wall which cannot be seen through.

They all know that between them they are wearing four hats--two black and two white--but they do not know what color they are wearing. Each of them know where the other three men are buried.

In order to avoid being shot, one of them must call out to the executioner the color of their hat. If they get it wrong, everyone will be shot. They are not allowed to talk to each other and have 10 minutes to fathom it out.

After one minute, one of them calls out.

Question: Which one of them calls out? Why is he 100% certain of the color of his hat?

There's no trick; just a logical answer -if you can put yourself into these guys' place. Which is, after all, a very bad place to be. Link -via Boing Boing


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Well, in a place that executes people in such a manner, they need plenty of walls to keep the people from voting with their feet. They also probably line people up against it for executions when they don't have the time to bury them.

But I see your point as far as the puzzle goes.
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I used to hate these artificial logic problems, especially where the "correct" answer relies on the assumption by one individual that the others are perfectly intelligent and acting logically.

By the way, the answer to most of these is that the person with the most amount of information cannot be sure of the answer. That added information allows someone with just a bit less information to guess correctly.
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