osman@sierra.DEC (Eric, Digital, Maynard, 617 493-6664) (03/11/86)
Yes, please do publish your mysteries! I've had lots of fun with them at parties, or during long car rides, or with kids, or combinations of all of that. Here are some mysteries I know: o A bartender serves two drinks from same liquor bottle. One customer suspects poison, and asks partner to drink first. Partner drinks entire drink. Suspicious customer is now satisfied and drinks his and dies ! What happened ? o A man is dead on the floor of a room surrounded by fifty-two bicycles. What happened ? o Two sailors go into a restaurant. They both order albatross soup. One takes a single taste and runs outside and throws up. What happened ? ** hard one ** o Two dead bodies on the floor of a room, window open, water on floor. What happened ? o A man takes elevator down every morning from high-rise apartment, but takes elevator only halfway up in evening and walks the rest of the way. Why ? ** more well known ** o Three heavy people try to crowd under one umbrella, and nobody gets wet. ** a quickie ** As original contributor mentioned, narrator offers one of the above stories. Then participants ask yes-no questions to figure out what happened. Perhaps instead of spoiling these, we could play them over the net ? Maybe the narrator can collect a week's worth of questions and then publish questions and answers so far in net.puzzle ? (assumedly narrator responds DURING the week privately to the questions) /Eric
mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (03/14/86)
I sent the mystery below to Pete Olpe, who originated this discussion. Since
the topic seems to be catching interest on the net, I'll post it for general
consumption. It's the most elaborate story of this type that I know.
As <1619decwrl.DEC.COM> (sorry, I've lost your name off screen) says,
it's not obvious what procedure to use. I'll answer questions either
by mail or in net.puzzle. Considering the problems of turnaround
time, it's reasonable to allow several questions at one go.
The mystery:
One day A (you could give them names, but they wouldn't matter) mails
a package to B; it contains an arm. B receives it, opens it, glances
at the contents, wraps the package again, and mails it to C. When C
gets it, he opens it, etc, and mails it on to D. And so on, through
characters E, F, and G. When G receives the package, opens it, looks
at the contents, he discards it.
A couple of weeks later, E sees A walking down the street. E gets
very angry, yells at A, and shoots him.
The mystery question: why does E shoot A? A secondary question, which
you would probably have to answer along the way, is: why are they mailing
this arm around?
Q: Is it a human arm?
A: Yes
Q: Is it a right arm?
A: No
Q: Was B expecting the arm?
A: Yes
Q: Were they _all_ expecting the arm?
A: Yes, all those who received it were expecting an arm.
Q: What does that mean? Why are you rephrasing my question?
A: ...
Q: Do they live in the same city.
A: Not all of them.
Q: But E and A live in the same city?
A: Yes
Q: Do we care about their occupations?
A: Two of them, yes.
Q: Have E and A met before the shooting incident?
A: Oh yes.
Eventually you get to "How many arms does ___ have?" for each character,
or "Does ___ have two arms?", to keep to Y/N format. Then you're well on
your way.
I think meta-questions are acceptable, and should get honest answers
(questions like "Does it matter whether ____?"). If the questioner
skips meta-questions, and asks something whose answer is not determined
in the underlying story-answer, the narrator is free to make up anything
plausible that's consistent with the story -- this isn't cheating, or
changing things post hoc. If it's a really useful question and answer,
it may become part of the `official' story by the next time you hear
it. (I suspect this is how the occupations of two of the characters
got accreted in as part of the arm story.)
It also seems reasonable to allow questions whose answer must come from
a small set, e.g. "How many fingers did the arm have?" This avoids
the tedious transformation to "Did the arm have 5 fingers?" ... "Four?"
... "Three?" etc. But beware presupposition-failure.
Do you want to pursue this, or just see the answer?
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmarugfailau@sunybcs.UUCP (Fai Lau) (03/16/86)
> > o A bartender serves two drinks from same liquor bottle. > One customer suspects poison, and asks partner to drink > first. Partner drinks entire drink. Suspicious customer > is now satisfied and drinks his and dies ! What happened ? The posion is on the glass. > > o A man is dead on the floor of a room surrounded by fifty-two > bicycles. What happened ? What do you mean? In a ROOM with bicycles INSIDE? Or is that a HOUSE you're talking about, with the cycles OUTSIDE? > > o Two sailors go into a restaurant. They both order albatross > soup. One takes a single taste and runs outside and throws > up. What happened ? ** hard one ** He saw the albatross moved. > > o Two dead bodies on the floor of a room, window open, water > on floor. What happened ? This is a wide guess... They lived in a house where the window was water tight. Over one night where the house was had a flush. They woke up and went to open the window only to let the water get in. The water came in contact with the ac outlet and their feet and they got electricuted. > > o A man takes elevator down every morning from high-rise > apartment, but takes elevator only halfway up in evening > and walks the rest of the way. Why ? ** more well known ** He is too short to press the higher buttons. > > o Three heavy people try to crowd under one umbrella, and > nobody gets wet. ** a quickie ** It's not raining. > Now how about this: A man went to visit a small deserted island which rarely gets any visitor. He reached the island by crossing a worn wooden bridge. He found that there was absolutely no living thing, animal or vegetation, whatsoever. So he decided to return. But when he put his foot on the bridge he found the bridge was about to collopse. Since the doesn't know how to swim and the bridge was the only mean he had to return to the main land, he was confined to the island. He didn't carry any thing at all beside his clothings. However, by the end of the twenty-first day he made it through the bridge without any help. What happened? +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Fai Lau | | ECE / CS SUNYAB | | BI: ugfailau@sunybcs | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+