Hangman

Hans van Ditmarsch () and Barteld Kooi ()
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Hans van Ditmarsch: Université de Lorraine, LORIA, CNRS
Barteld Kooi: University of Groningen, Faculty of Philosophy

Chapter 2 in One Hundred Prisoners and a Light Bulb, 2015, pp 13-19 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract At a trial a prisoner is sentenced to death by the judge. The verdict reads “You will be executed next week, but the day on which you will be executed will be a surprise to you.” The prisoner reasons as follows. “I cannot be executed on Friday, because in that case I would not be surprised. But given that Friday is eliminated, then I cannot be executed on Thursday either, because that would then no longer be a surprise. And so on. Therefore the execution will not take place.” And so, his execution, that happened to be on Wednesday, came as a surprise.

Keywords: Reasonable Capture; Prison; Rumpelstiltskin; Hangman Paradox; Military Training Exercises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-16694-0_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-16694-0_2

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