sw121290

The answer is zero for the following reasons: 1. Prisoners are selfish. They will not willingly sacrifice themselves to save the others. The only scenario in which there would be a sacrifice is if the he/she was forced to be the sacrifice. Given there is a one-night time frame and advance technology has not been invented (an era where there is one absolute king?), we can safely assume the impossibility of outside threats (ie. I'll kill your family if you don't sacrifice yourself). Even if such threats were possible, would I be able to trust such a person (see #3). Maybe it'd be better to just screw the answers and hope the other prisoners die. 2. Prisoners are stupid. It took me a couple read through to even understand the solution. We have people posting on this forum who claim the solution does not work simply because they misinterpreted it. For this solution to work, the prisoners must first understand the solution, pay full attention in a stressful environment, and keep count of details. One flaw and the entire group dies. It is probably better to just guess with 50/50 chance then to rely on the stupid. 3. Distrust among prisoners are common. The solution forces the one in front to depend on the one in back. As we already established, prisoners are selfish. If they the prisoner feels he is confident to live, who is to say he won't betray the person in front due to some past/current grudges? Not only will the back prisoner have this option, the front prisoner may suspect something of the sorts. Worst comes to worst, the distrust leads to the false answer and thereby snowballs everyone to their deaths. 4. The solution changes uncertainty into certainty. Thereby, any mistakes in the process can turn the situation into certainly dire and potentially cause more deaths. Therefore, if I were a prisoner, I'd rather "take my chances".