I saw this challenge online and I googled it but I disagree with all the solutions I've found online. I am posting it on my blog because either:
- According to Moore's law if I say something wrong online someone will eventually correct me, and with that I hope that I will understand why I am wrong and how to think the correct way to solve this
- I am actually right and I am correcting others and people will google about this and they will find this, they will find this one post on Hive with the CORRECT answer in a sea full of wrong answers! Isn't Hive great? If you've found this trying to get the correct answer, WELCOME TO HIVE! Here you can get money for doing what you do normally on the internet :)
The question is short and simple:
There are 3 boxes. One of them contains gold.
In each box, there is a message, and one of them is
true.
Box 1's message is: "The gold is not in Box 2."
Box 2's message is: "The gold is in this box."
Box 3's message is: "The gold is not in this box."
Which box has the gold?
The internet says it is box 1
I googled it and the whole internet seems to believe that the gold is in box 1. Their explanations vary but none of the makes sense to me.
You can google it yourself and see their way of explaining why it is on box 1, I honestly didn't understand their explanation so I will simply elaborate on this post why I think it is not 1 and why I think it is in another box and that is the only one that makes sense to me (well, either that or it is a trick question and there is not enough information!)
The basics
The problem just states that one of the boxes has gold and that one of the messages is true. It is unrelated if the box that has the gold has a true or false message or anything like that, so let us not assume anything like that. There are boxes and messages, one box has gold, one box has a true message.
Let's evaluate the truth of the messages based on where the gold is:
Box 1's message is: "The gold is not in Box 2."
Box 2's message is: "The gold is in this box."
Box 3's message is: "The gold is not in this box."
If the gold is on box "x" the respective messages, from 1 to 3 are:
Box 1: Message 1 = ✅; Message 2 = ❌; Message 3 = ✅;
Box 2: Message 1 = ❌; Message 2 = ✅; Message 3 = ✅;
Box 3: Message 1 = ✅; Message 2 = ❌; Message 3 = ❌;
One of them is true? Or only one of them is true? Big difference
If the problem stated specifically that ONLY ONE is true to me it would be very simple. As we evaluated before, only if the gold is on box 3 we would have only 1 truthful message, if the gold were on any other box we could have more than one message being true.
I think this is where people get confused, but I didn't understand the reasoning behind EVERYONE on the internet saying that the gold is on the box 1, if I understood I would then be able to explain why it is wrong, but I didn't understand their explanation.
Keep in mind that I am not a native English speaker, the LANGUAGE BARRIER may be what is confusing me.
The best clue I have is that they are misunderstanding the question and the question is badly phrased (OR IT IS A TRICK QUESTION!!!!)
So the gold is in box....
3, the gold is inside box 3, because if it were on any other box there would be more than one correct message, so it could be a "tie" between box 1 and 2, both of them would have two true messages, how would I choose one of them?
But if it is inside box 3 then we have only one correct message. The challenge does not say that the gold has to be inside the box that says the truth, because again if that were the case, being in box 1 and being in box 2 would be a tie again, both being in a box with a true message and both cases having 2 true messages.
I could be wrong
I am posting here exactly because I want to understand why I could be wrong. To me it makes all the sense in the world for the gold to be inside box 3, because then one message would be true.
It could be the case that there is NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION and it is a trick question! The trick being that because the challenge is badly worded, it doesn't say "only one message is true", then the answer is that there is not enough information, thus it is a trick question.
If that is the case I hope that whoever wrote the challenge faces negative karma, just a little bit of negative karma to balance things out, I don't wish bad stuff on people at all so I hope they keep on living good lives and keep on writing trick questions if that makes them happy, but facing some trick challenges once in a while, because you know, you sow what you reap, or something like that (again I am not a native speaker lol)
Have you tried to put this into an AI and see what it comes back with?
Yes, a couple times and only nonsense comes back. If you paste any challenge into AI and ask “are you sure” the AI will probably say something “you are right, I apologize for my mistake, actually it is another answer” and it keeps changing its mind the more you ask.
AI is not reliable to solve logic challenges, most AIs are language models, they write wrong information/solutions very convincingly because they are good at language, not necessarily logic (although they are getting better as language and logic are closely related)
I admit the intro was very CUNNING ... you HAM
!LOL
Posted using STEMGeeks
I was hoping someone would notice the little “Easter egg” haha
lolztoken.com
Nothing, they just hung out and chilled.
Credit: reddit
@igormuba, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of irivers
(1/1)
Delegate Hive Tokens to Farm $LOLZ and earn 110% Rewards. Learn more.
I agree with you, and I would also go with box 3.
What are the reasons why it should be in box 1??
I swear I wish I could explain why some people choose 1, I read over and over again and it doesn’t make sense.
To me it is either box 3 or it is a trick question and there is not enough information because it doesn’t say “ONLY one message is true” (keyword being only)
I think you are right.
Messages on box 1 and 2 can't be both true or false. One has to be true and the other false. Since they can't be both false, then message on box 3 is definitely false. So gold is on box 3 and message on box 1 is true.
More importantly is the explanation, so that it is clear to everyone, because the ones I read I couldn’t understand
This is easily solved using the scientific method which you've already done.
Each configuration must be proved wrong.
There are only three options.
Box 1: Message 1 = ✅; Message 2 = ❌; Message 3 = ✅;
Box 2: Message 1 = ❌; Message 2 = ✅; Message 3 = ✅;
Box 3: Message 1 = ✅; Message 2 = ❌; Message 3 = ❌;
Only one configuration fits the description.
Which is box 3.
If all configurations where incorrect then we assume trick question.
But because we already have a provable answer there's no reason to assume it's wrong.
Even if a bunch of other people got it wrong or are gaslighting on purpose.
I mean seriously though people are dumb and most can't even do PEMDAS basic arithmetic these days.
Like, really though?
Yeah, you summed it up really clear for anyone that eventually googles this in the future. Pretty clear, hope this helps someone that happens to see it and try to search for not only for the answer but more importantly for an explanation!
I'm with you
Box 2 can't be true because that would make 1 and 3 false and box 3 statement contradicts 2 being true.
So box 2 is false
Box 1 can't be lying because then the gold would have to be in 2
So box 1 is true which means that box 3s statement would be false and that the gold is there
Hopefully 😀
Thanks to bias confirmation I think that the greatest minds of the internet are on Hive because everyone seems to agree
Haha and yet another thing I would agree with!!