One hundred prisoners stand in a straight line seeing those visible to them only from the back. You get the picture, back guy sees 99 others, front guy sees no one. They are fitted, one each, with a hat, whose color is uniformly randomly Red, White or Blue. Each prisoner must guess the color of his own hat, without having seen it, by saying one of the three colors, and he is executed if he is wrong. The guesses are made sequentially, from the back of the line to the front. The guesses are not identified as to their accuracy, and no prisoners are executed, until all 100 guesses are made.
The prisoners may collaborate on a strategy, with the object of guaranteeing as many survivors as possible. (Their communication ends, of course, once the first hat is placed.) How many can be saved, in the worst case?
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bonanova
One hundred prisoners stand in a straight line seeing those visible to them only from the back. You get the picture, back guy sees 99 others, front guy sees no one. They are fitted, one each, with a hat, whose color is uniformly randomly Red, White or Blue. Each prisoner must guess the color of his own hat, without having seen it, by saying one of the three colors, and he is executed if he is wrong. The guesses are made sequentially, from the back of the line to the front. The guesses are not identified as to their accuracy, and no prisoners are executed, until all 100 guesses are made.
The prisoners may collaborate on a strategy, with the object of guaranteeing as many survivors as possible. (Their communication ends, of course, once the first hat is placed.) How many can be saved, in the worst case?
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