[rookie1ja]

Small Hotel - Back to the Logic Puzzles
13 people came into a hotel with 12 rooms and each guest wanted his own room. The bellboy solved this problem.
He asked the thirteenth guest to wait a little with the first guest in room number 1. So in the first room there were two people. The bellboy took the third guest to room number 2, the fourth to number 3, ..., and the twelfth guest to room number 11. Then he returned to room number 1 and took the thirteenth guest to room number 12, still vacant.
How can everybody have his own room?

Spoiler for Solution:

Hotel - solution
Of course, it is impossible. Into the second room should have gone the 2nd guest, because the 13th guest was waiting in room number 1.

Spoiler for old wording:

13 men came into a hotel with 12 rooms and everybody wanted his own room. The bellboy solved this problem.
He asked the thirteenth guest to wait a moment with the first guest in room number 1. So in the first room there were two people. The bellboy took the third guest to room number 2, the fourth to number 3, ... and the twelfth guest to room number 11. Then he returned to room number 1 and took the thirteenth guest to empty room number 12.
How can everybody have his own room?

[strikefiend]

What if the bellboy doesn't give Guest 2 a room at all??, then everyone that has a room would have his own room.

[Veracity]

AHHHHH, Took me a minute... But I got it.. Your counting the 13th guest twice. Both as one of the first 2 guests in room 1, AND the 13th guest. Impossible. Gotcha..lol Sucks to be the Un-lucky number 13 in this situation, huh??

[TheOnlyOne]

Or maybe the bellboy was one of the thirteen people who came in

[napolinario]

shouldn't the answer be as simple as "impossible because you didn't give guest # 2 a room"?

[mso]

Why should the easy answer be the quickest one? I spent one minute trying to figure out why would the guys fit in the rooms, but couldn't figure it out, and then discovered the missing guest.

It's even more difficult for a non-native speaker.

---
http://projectmanager1.blogspot.com

[smartmind]

The bell boy didn't really solve the puzzle, he just missed out guest 2 and left him/her roomless. (unless they agreed to time-share).

Of course if the puzzle had said there were a Baker's dozen rooms, then each guest would have got a room each as a Baker's dozen is actually 13 and not 12.

In actual fact the puzzle is nonsensical as you may as well say one hundred guests arrived and there were only two rooms, how would each guest have their own room. The answer would obviously be they couldn't.

[someguy101]

If there were 13 people that walked in to the hotel and all 13 of them wanted their own room and there were only 12 rooms available and you didn't forget to put the 2nd guest into a room, it would not be possible. But, when you look at how the riddle is stated: "everbody wanted his own room". I am assuming that "everybody" means everbody that wanted a room or everybody that was a male. Maybe the 2nd person was the bellboy or someone other than a guest that did not want a room at all. Or maybe the 2nd person was a guest that already had a room. If 2 or more of the thirteen people were females, you could have packed them all into one room, since only the males wanted their own rooms.

[banebrain]

Guest #2 sleeps in the elevator

[exorbitantego]

someguy101, your solution is incorrect because the word "everybody" is a singular noun with no gender, and when you talk about a person without knowing his or her gender, you would use either "his or hers" or simply "his."
It's proper English.
Using "its" would mean its inhuman, and using "their" would mean that it belonged to more than one person.




I think a logical solution is that the bellboy found a solution by simply convincing person #2, who was never placed in a room, and someone else to share a room.
After placing everyone else in a room, he would then guide #2 to the room in which the other who agreed was staying.