## Friday, October 05, 2007

### Ring in a Box

The ruler of a small, but influential country was looking to find his successor. But, he wanted to make sure the one who succeeded him would be able to continue his good policy through logic. So he devised the following puzzle to test the applicants.

He put three boxes (gold, silver and bronze) out and told the applicant at least one inscription is true and at least one is false. Then he told him inside one of the boxes was a ring. The applicant gets only one chance at figuring out the puzzle. Can you help him out?

Golden box: The ring is not in the silver box.

Silver box: The ring is not in this box.

Lead box: The ring is in this box.

1. It is in the Gold box. If the 2 statemtns saying that it is not in the silver box are true, then the third statement has to false, which rules out the lead box. So that means gold wins.

2. **or it could be in the lead box because that would make the gold and silver boxes' inscriptions both true, causing the inscription on the bronze box (or lack thereof to be false).
plus since the lead box is not included in the set, the king has no heir.**-jk
I agree with anon.

3. I agree. It's in the gold box.

If the ring was in the silver box, then the inscription on the gold, silver and lead box would be false. If the ring was in the lead box, then all three inscriptions would be true. If the ring is in the golden box, then the inscription on the golden box is true, the inscription on the silver box is true, but the inscription on the lead box is false.

BTW, if the ring was not in any of the boxes (hey, who said it had to be fair?), then the inscriptions on the gold, silver would be true, but the inscription on the lead box is false.

4. if there are indeed four boxes, three with inscriptions, it could be the bronze box also. gold and silver true; tin false. he had better be good at guessing

5. The ring is on the Kings Finger. I win!

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