Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Pirate Puzzle

This riddle is an intro to the next post I'm working on... :)

There are 5 pirates on a ship - the captain, 1st mate, navigator, cook and cabin boy, in order of descending rank. These pirates are all motivated by the same things, in order:
  1. Self preservation trumps all.
  2. Greed. They would do anything to get one extra piece of gold, short of giving up their lives.
  3. Bloodlust. They enjoy seeing other people die, and if it doesn't cost them anything, they'd just as soon see their own comrades snuff it.
They discover a treasure of 1,000 gold coins, and a discussion ensues about how to divide it up. They agree and swear a blood oath that:
  1. The lowest ranked pirate (the cabin boy) will make a proposal of how to split the gold.
  2. The pirates will vote on the plan
  3. If the plan wins by a clear majority (no ties!) the plan will be implemented.
  4. If the plan fails to gain a clear majority, the person who proposed it will walk the plank, and they return to step 1 with the next ranking pirate.
Then a genie pops out of a bottle that they found with the treasure, and gives them all the gift of infinite intelligence for 15 minutes, during which they will be making their proposals and voting. (They don't suddenly become moral or lose any of their other motivators - they just become instant experts in game theory.)

After the proposal and voting - who is still alive, and how much money do they have?

I won't post the solution... just yet... :)

(Hattip - Sruli Shaffren who introduced me to this riddle)

2 comments:

Sruli said...

Shall I post a solution? :-)

I've got lots more puzzles...

My blog has become a de-facto recipe repository.

Shaul B said...

Sruli gave me some more links:

On Wikipedia is a more formal statement and solution of this puzzle.

And here is a more formal analysis of this puzzle from Scientific American.