NEW YORK, Oct 15 — You and nine other individuals have been captured by super-intelligent alien overlords.
The aliens think humans look quite tasty, but their civilisation forbids eating highly logical and cooperative beings.
Unfortunately, they’re not sure whether you qualify, so they decide to give you all a test using a logic puzzle.
The ten prisoners are arranged in a single file, starting from the shortest to the tallest at the back.
They are all randomly given white or black hats and must guess the colour of the hat they are wearing.
The prisoners can see the colour of the hat of the person (or people) in front of them, but not the colour of their own hat or the person behind them.
They may not look around, step out of the queue, or communicate in any way except by saying the words ‘black’ or ‘white’, and will be executed if any of the rules are broken.
The prisoners are given five minutes to discuss a way to solve this, and nine out of the ten must guess correctly to escape their fate.
Can you solve this hat riddle? Alex Gendler shows how in this TED-Ed video.
