Math was a class I liked. At home, I’d make up problems to solve just for fun. I still provided wrong answers on tests to keep at a C. But first I’d work out the correct answer, so I didn’t fill in a correct multiple-choice answer by mistake. One mistake I made was getting too excited about solving a riddle. We were studying logic, which I loved. Logic is just a form of math. You can express the classic logic statement as a formula. Dogs are animals. Cats are animals. Therefore, all cats are dogs.’ Dogs = A. Cats = B. Animals = C. If A = C and B = C, A does Not = B. See? Easy.
My math teacher told up a riddle. He said he’d give us a week to work on it. Anyone who could solve it would get extra credit. That evening at home, the riddle took me about 5 minutes to solve. Here’s the riddle.
In a small country, the king wanted a husband for his daughter. He put three magic statues in the castle courtyard. One statue would always tell the truth. One statue would always tell the lie. One statue would sometime lie and sometimes tell the truth. Young men came as suitors for the king’s daughter. The suitor could pose just one question to one statue only. From the answer the man must guess which statue was which. If he were correct, he won the daughter’s hand in marriage and received the kingdom as a prize.
The next day, my math teacher was shocked. I had the correct answer. To check me, I had to explain to the class how I had solved it. I won’t give you the answer here, but here’s a clue. Approach the first statue. Ask the figure who sits beside it. Only one combination will work. The statue answers, “The one who always lies.”
