TRUTH TELLERS AND LIARS PUZZLE COMPILATION

1. TOWN OF LIARS

PUZZLE : There are two towns: the first one (T) where all citizens always tell truth and the other one (L)
where all people always lie. You stay at a fork of two roads. One of them goes to town T while the other
one – to town L but you are not aware of to what town which road goes. Fortunately, you meet a citizen
of one of these towns but unfortunately you do not know where he lives. On your question he answers
only “Yes” or “No”. How could you find a right way to town T if you might ask him only one question?

SOLUTION

You must point to a certain road in your question. Possible replies depend upon whom do you meet
–a liar or not. But in order to solve a problem they both should provide the same answer. Otherwise it is
impossible to figure out where which city is. Suppose we prefer the following scheme of replies
presented below as a table

So you have to ask a question that could be answered according to this table. What should be the
question on which both the liar and truthful person give the same answer? This question probably has to
touch upon the person you are talking with. For instance, it could be the following question. You point
to the town and ask the comer: “Do you live in this town?”. Indeed, if it is the liar’s town the liar will say
“NO” and the truthful man will say “NO” as well. But if it is a town of truthful people its citizen will
answered your question “YES” while a liar will say “YES” also because he lies. Thus, reply “NO” means
that you pointed to the liar’s town while reply “YES” means that this one is the town of honest people.

2. HONEST PEOPLE

PUZZLE

16 people say the following statements one after another:

1: There are no honest people in this room;

2: There is at most one honest person in this room;

3: There are no more than two honest people in this room

.....

.....
16: There are no more than 15 honest people in this room.

How many honest people are in the room?

SOLUTION

suppose there are k honest people in the room. In such a case the first guy is a liar because he convinces
us that there are no honest people at all. Similarly all guys who assert that there are no more than 1, 2,
3…k-1 honest people in the room are liars. Thus, k first people lie and therefore the rest 16-k tell truth.
On the other hand we assumed from the very beginning that there are k honest people in the room. So
we arrive to the equality k = 16 –k from what one easy obtain k = 8.

3. TWO BROTHERS

PUZZLE

Arthur and Robert are twin brothers, indistinguishable in appearance. One of the two always lies and
the other always tells the truth, but you are not told whether it is Arthur or Robert who is the liar. You
meet one of the two one day and wish to find out whether he is Arthur or Robert. You may ask him one
yes/ no question.

SOLUTION

A question that works is: “Is Arthur truthful?” Arthur will certainly say that Arthur is truthful,
regardless of whether Arthur is truthful or not, and Robert will say that Arthur is not truthful, because if
Robert is truthful, then Arthur is not truthful, hence Robert will truthfully say that he isn’t. On the other
hand, if Robert lies, then Arthur is truthful, hence Robert will falsely say that Arthur isn’t truthful. Thus, if
you get yes for an answer, he is Arthur, and if he answers no, then he is Robert.

4. WHO IS THE CHIEF?

PUZZLE

Abercrombie knew that the island had a chief and was curious to find him. He finally narrowed his
search down to two brothers named Og and Bog, and knew that one of the two was the chief, but didn’t
know which one until they made the following

Statements:

Og: Bog is the chief and he is a knave!

Bog: Og is not the chief, but he is a knight.

Which one is the chief?

ANSWER

Og cannot be truthful, for if he were, then Bog would be the chief and a liar, hence Og would not be
the chief, hence Bog’s statement that Og is not the chief but is truthful, would be true, which is not
possible if Bog is a liar. Thus, Og must be a liar. It then follows that Bog’s statement was false, and so
Bog is also a liar. Now, if Bog were the chief, then he would be both the chief and a liar, hence Og’s
statement would be true, which cannot be, since Og is a liar.

Therefore, it is Og who is the chief.

5. THE TWO TRIBES

PUZZLE

John visited an island which was inhabited by two tribes—Tribe A and Tribe B. All the members of
Tribe A said: “All the inhabitants of this island are knights.” “All of us smoke.”

Each member of Tribe B said: “Some of the inhabitants of this island are knaves.” “No one on this
island smokes.”

What can be deduced?

ANSWER

All members of Tribe A are of the same type, and all members of Tribe B are of the same type. Since
the members of Tribe B have contradicted the members of Tribe A, it cannot be that the members of
both tribes are knights, so the members of Tribe A made false statements, and are therefore knaves. It
then further follows that the members of Tribe B are knights, because they correctly said that some of
the inhabitants of the island are knaves (and indeed, the members of Tribe A are knaves). Then their
second statements were also true, hence no one on this island smokes. Thus Tribe A consists of knaves,
Tribe B consists of knights, and no one on the island smokes.

REFERENCES:

Smullyan, R. (2009).Logical Labyrinths. Canada: A K Peters, Ltd.

Galina, O., Itkin, A., Yakov, P.(1999). 101 quizzes for preparing yourself to pass an interview (for
programmers and economists. New York.