[Guest]

While hiking through the mountains, you get lost and end up in a village, population 99. You only have 200 USD left. Everyone is greedy, so they will not do anything for free. The majority of the townsfolk are also honest, but some are troublemakers. You need to hire one of the honest citizens as your guide home, which will cost 100 USD. But as the first thing you need to ID one that is honest. For 1 USD, you can ask any villager if another villager is honest. If you ask an honest villager, they tell the truth. If you ask a troublemakers, they might say anything. (The villagers do not understand other kinds of questions.)

Come up with a way to identify an honest person for sure, and with enough money left to get home.

important:

1. the villagers do NOT understand any other questions

2. the troublemakers may lie OR tell the truth

[Guest]

Good one.

[Guest]

Maybe The Correct Answer

All Villagers are GREEDY. They all want the 100 USD for themselves, My theory is Troublemakers will always tell lies and Honest villagers will tell the truth no matter what. Majority of the villagers are Honest so lets say 50 honest and 49 troublemakers. I think the plan how to ask question is the key to this challenge ... this is my plan of asking, gather them all (99 villagers) and one by one ask the same question like this ... In that other 98 villagers besides you, is there any other honest person there? ... Greediness will play a big role in this kind of questioning, Surely all trouble makers will say NO (just to get the Job) and Honest Villagers will say YES ... by this you can get the majority who say yes and you just pick one of them as your guide ... I hope i am correct, This is a nice challenge

Edited September 6, 2011 by beryong27

[bhramarraj]

Maybe The Correct Answer

All Villagers are GREEDY. They all want the 100 USD for themselves, My theory is Troublemakers will always tell lies and Honest villagers will tell the truth no matter what. Majority of the villagers are Honest so lets say 50 honest and 49 troublemakers. I think the plan how to ask question is the key to this challenge ... this is my plan of asking, gather them all (99 villagers) and one by one ask the same question like this ... In that other 98 villagers besides you, is there any other honest person there? ... Greediness will play a big role in this kind of questioning, Surely all trouble makers will say NO (just to get the Job) and Honest Villagers will say YES ... by this you can get the majority who say yes and you just pick one of them as your guide ... I hope i am correct, This is a nice challenge

Your answer seems to be more convincing. Since all villagers are greedy. So in that case when you ask any villager about another villager,showing $1 "He is honest or not?", Trouble makers know that you are going to pay $1, to the villagers till you find an honest man so they will always answer 'NO'. So you go on asking the villagers till you find a combination of two honest villagers, who answer 'Yes'.

[Guest]

Your answer seems to be more convincing. Since all villagers are greedy. So in that case when you ask any villager about another villager,showing $1 "He is honest or not?", Trouble makers know that you are going to pay $1, to the villagers till you find an honest man so they will always answer 'NO'. So you go on asking the villagers till you find a combination of two honest villagers, who answer 'Yes'.

I think too much math can ruined other possible bold and obvious hints and clues about the challenge, thats why i've read again the question and think logically before solving numbers ...