# Today's puzzle 19/07/2017



## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

The Queen of Hearts has lost her tarts! She is sure that those knaves who have not eaten the tarts will tell her the truth and the guilty knave (or knaves) will tell lies. When questioned the five knaves declare:

Knave 1: 'One of us ate them'

Knave 2: 'Two of us ate them'

Knave 3: 'Three of us ate them'

Knave 4: 'Four of us ate them'

Knave 5: 'Five of us ate them'

How many of the knaves are honest? Which of them is/are telling the truth?


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## NickG (Aug 15, 2013)

Knave 4 is the snitch!


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## FJ1000 (Nov 21, 2015)

Agree with Nick, knave 4 telling the truth others lying - seems to be the only combination that'd work

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Forgot to say - well done Nick!

The answer is that only Knave 4 is telling the truth. You might have approached this in different ways, but here is one way of thinking about the puzzle.

The knaves all disagree, so at most only one of them can be telling the truth.

If one of them is telling the truth, then four of them are lying, so four ate the tarts. Hence Knave 4 alone is telling the truth.

If all five knaves are lying, then all five ate the tarts. But then this makes Knave 5's statement true, which is a contradiction.

Therefore exactly one of the knaves (Knave 4) is telling the truth.


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