If I were to ask your brother which way to go to Amsterdam what would he say? You then go the other way

^Well-played. now you give me one?

Ok - bend over....

That's not a riddle, that's an instruction for US prisoners

See my 'New Question Everyday' thread for some really tasking questions

I don't watch British TV shows. A riddle Maniac, come on you can do it.

Who's familiar with the riddle below and can give a hint (so not the answer) to get me started? I've been thinking about it for a while and this part in particular "At the first sound of the bell four persons have left the table." I can't comprehend. How can they leave the table immediately? Is it due to the limited amount of colors?

http://web.mst.edu/~wjcharat/Alice.pdf

@Mr rb - I'm not aware of the answer but I would be looking for a word that has the same meaning as another but has been used to maybe distract your attention.

Why does Novice have a sister, when there are 31 men at the table?

@Mr

You are looking at the correct statement to solve the first step of the problem. Think about why exactly they would leave immediately.

Yes, in a way, it is indeed due to the limited amount of colors. With 31people, there can physically only be 31 colors. However, if there were 31 different colors, the problem would be impossible for the students to solve. Students would not know which colors were represented, and thus would have no way to figure out their own color.

Also, the problem is straightforward. By that, I mean there is no manipulation of words to throw you off.

I want to say that I have not solved the entire problem yet, but the first step will seem obvious once you do figure it out.

Do you have a brother ?

Here's a fun one and easy if you get it right away, confusing if you don't:
A hermit has what he deems as a broken compass, because it is always spinning in circles. Unlike most hermits that live in caves, he lives in a square house. Each side of the house has a window that he can look out of. While looking out a window on one side of the house (I won't tell which one), bear approaches. What color is the bear?

that should be "'a' bear approaches"... sorry about the typo.

White.

I have a riddle:

Explain existence.

What is Alice doing in Never Land? Why isn't she in Wonderland and where's Peter Pan?

Nice one Fortknox, that's one to remember :)

I can contribute more to the Alice puzzle:

There are an infinite number of colors, but we know that there can be at most 15 colors at the table, because the Speaker said that every logician at the table can determine their color. That means two people must share every color since otherwise some would not even know that their color existed, and it would be impossible for them to determine their color logically (that is, without guessing). Since 31 divided by 2 is 15 with a remainder, any more than 15 colors would mean that at least one person could never solve the puzzle.

It's reasonable to think that there are fewer than 15 colors because 15 colors would make the problem too easy. Most could look around the table for the one color only represented one time and deduce that they were the other person with the color. After the first round, there would be only three people left, and those three could then deduce that they must all share the same color or one of them could never solve the puzzle.

From that we can determine that at least one color must be represented in a different proportion than the rest. 31 is a prime number, so no matter how many colors are present (15 or fewer) there will always be at least 1 person who cannot be grouped evenly with the rest. As said, that person cannot have their own color (or else they would never be able to logically determine what it was) so necessarily the remainder person must unbalance the group so that one color has a different number of people than any other. This is true even if the colors are not otherwise evenly grouped (for example, if there are 3 blues, 3 greens, 7 reds, 7 yellows, and 4 purples, the purples are represented disproportionately from any other group.)

That Alice riddle is quite interesting. It seems that it must be related to and possibly a generalization of the blue-eyed islanders riddle:

http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/the-blue-eyed-islanders-puzzle-repost/

http://www.xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html
http://www.xkcd.com/solution.html

Nicely done semck. Figured someone would get it quick :)

Alice:

We also know a little something about the first four people to leave: they formed two color pairs. These people each looked around the table and saw that (from their perspective) there was one person who was the only person with a particular color. These people correctly deduced that they themselves must have the same color as that person, since otherwise the loner could never logically solve the puzzle. Thus, of the 4 people who left the first round, two were the only ones at the table with color x and two were the only ones at the table with color y.

Regarding the Alice riddle:

I believe I have the answer in the number of bell rings before clearing the table.

Shall I go ahead and post it? Just the number, I mean.

I don't think it would spoil much by revealing the number, as the crux is in providing the explanation.

The explanation is highly related to the blue-eyed islanders riddle, but it requires some further logic to deduce the sequence of events regarding Alice.

I don't think it would be possible to get the solution for Alice if you don't understand the solution to the blue-eyed riddle.

I guess that's up to Mr_rb, since it looks like this might be a school assignment and if he'd be tempted to copy the answer we should not help him cheat (though I may have already given more info than a professor would have liked me to).

Sure, please post it :). I think I've got it too and would like to compare.

I'm pretty sure I know how to do Alice, but I am a little confused by how many people are participating. Is it 31? What about Novice and his sister? It says that it is 31 men so does that mean 32 total people?

@ Mosko- I was explaining an adjusted version of the blue/brown eyes riddle to a friend and after that stumbled on a forum referring to this Alice riddle. In hindsight can't believe it took me so long to realize how the first four people knew what color they had, especially since I had just discussed the Island riddle before. I'm also still confused about the sister and men though... but since Skittles says the problem was not in the wording I disregard it.

I think it's gotta be 31 total people at the table, though I agree the sister reference is confusing. Part of the solution is dependent on the fact that it is logically necessary for at least one group to be disproportionate from the others. Only a prime number of people would require that premise to be true. I think that last sentence is just poorly written.

uclabb has a good point. I assumed that the riddle meant to say 31 total people, which gave me the answer of 6 bell rings, but it seems that even if there is 32, the answer remains the same.