Prisonner’s last hope

For this riddle, your have to imagine a big jail, in a remote country. The kind of jail people won’t mind if an inmate is being tortured or killed.

The director of this jail is known to be cruel, but he also loves gambling. And from time to time, he proposes some riddles to the inmates, and nothing pleases him more than watching them failing and be punished for this.

However, today, he is in a good mood, so he decides to give a chance to 4 death row inmates. They are buried on the ground in a way only their head will remain on the surface. They are all facing a wall, but one of them is separated from the other and buried on the other side of this wall, this way: > > > | <

The first prisonner can see 2 of his friends, the second one can see only one, and both the 3rd and the last one can see only the wall.

Then the chief put an hat on each of them, and explains:

There are 2 white hats, and 2 black hats. Anytime now, one of you can speak, and tell me the color of his own hat. If he’s right, everyone will be free. On the contrary, if he fails, all of you will stay here until you die. There are only 2 rules: of course, you cannot communicate each one with each other. And only ONE of you can speak.

If you were one of the prisonner, would you solve this case and get free?

One thought to “Prisonner’s last hope”

  1. Yes, I will definitely get free, I think so 🙂
    Here is my logic.
    > > > | <
    1 2 3 4 ……………..here is how I number the prisoners

    Now, 1 can see 2&3. If BOTH have the same coloured hat, then #1 says the name of the other colour. eg. if BOTH 2&3 have black, obviously #1 and 4 have white. so #1 says white.
    if 2 and 3 have one black and one white, then #2 should realise this if he sees that #1 is not answering. THen he simply has to look at the colour of the hat of #3 and shout the other colour….

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