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puzzles and riddles


sushi

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So here's something I've seen elsewhere: someone gives a logic puzzle or riddle. When it has been answered, someone else can give one. If no one can answer your puzzle or riddle, you can give hints. If someone gives one that nobody can answer and never comes back, we can just move on to the next one.

 

I'll begin.

 

There is a abbey in the mountains with twenty nuns and an abbess in residence. As nuns are not supposed to be concerned with personal appearance, there are no mirrors in the abbey.

 

One night, a mischievous nun sneaks around while everyone else is sleeping, and draws mustaches on the faces of ten other nuns.

 

In the morning, all of the nuns see the mustaches on each other's faces, but don't want to humiliate each other by pointing it out, so not a single one of them tells any other nun that she has a mustache on her face. Each of the nuns assumes that the prankster missed her, and she does not have a mustache drawn on her own face.

 

After several hours, the abbess sees that all of the nuns are too distracted by the mustaches to focus on their duties, and she decides that she has to do something. Knowing that all of the nuns have very logical minds, she calls all of them together and says "Some of you have mustaches drawn on your faces. I am going to ring this bell twenty times. After each ring, I want every nun who knows that she has a mustache to leave and wash her face."

 

Do the nuns ever leave to wash their faces, and if so, how many, and when?

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson

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Gosh, this is a really good one. I'm not so sure about the answer.

 

I'm going to guess yes. Only one nun leaves during the final ring of the bell.

 

Technically, they all have to leave to wash eventually, so all of them after the final ring of the bell works too.

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Nun.

 

I'm having trouble finding a reason that any of them would leave, when all of them assume that they don't have one, and no one tells each other. I especially can't imagine why they would leave at any particular time.

Also, they may not be concerned with their own appearance, but they certainly seem to be concerned with others'.

 

 

P.S. If I do somehow happen to win, I don't think I have any riddles to which you can't find the answers on google.

 

"If this can be avoided, it should. If it can't, then it would be better if it could be. If it happened and you're thinking back to it, try and think back further. Try not to avoid it with your mind. If any of this is possible, it may be helpful. If not, it won't be."

 

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I think a nun might tell a nun next to her she should wash the mustache off. She might deny she has one but I think she might be convinced to do it, or get into an argument about it. I mean, they're not mindless cattle.

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Reisen: Well.. I don't see any special answer, but I saw a couple things of interest.

 

After each ring, I want every nun who knows

 

Why would every nun leave after each ring? Either this is a typo, or the number of rings has something to do with when the nuns will leave.

 

I feel like the answer would have to do with the single nun who knows she has no mustache on her face, for example being the only one who isn't unsure, not leaving when the rest of the nuns cave.

 

But it explicitly says that each nun assumes they weren't one of the victims. So my final answer is: none of the nuns leave to wash their faces, and the "I will ring this bell 20 times" is only a faux clue meant to trick you into thinking some number leaves at some point. But I wasn't the first to guess none, so I'll leave the next riddle to them.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Well, no one has gotten it yet.

 

Technically, they all have to leave to wash eventually, so all of them after the final ring of the bell works too.

Yeah, they could all just leave to wash their faces, but they're pretty short on soap ever since the Liturgy of the Holy Bubble Bath.

 

Nun.

You know, the funny thing is, my father was a nun. I know, 'cos whenever he was up in court, and the judge used to say "occupation", he'd say "nun".

 

I'm having trouble finding a reason that any of them would leave, when all of them assume that they don't have one, and no one tells each other. I especially can't imagine why they would leave at any particular time.

They're very logical nuns, and they've already solved this themselves.

 

Also, they may not be concerned with their own appearance, but they certainly seem to be concerned with others'.

You can say what you like, but it's very hard to take Sister Mary Bridget seriously when she has a Cheech Marin mustache. And poor Sister Mary Teresa is the spitting image of Hitler.

 

P.S. If I do somehow happen to win, I don't think I have any riddles to which you can't find the answers on google.

Well you can always pass to someone else. The person to ask the next doesn't have to be the one who answered the last one. Also, you can rewrite them. This one of mine is on google, but in that version there aren't any nuns or mustaches.

 

I think a nun might tell a nun next to her she should wash the mustache off. She might deny she has one but I think she might be convinced to do it, or get into an argument about it. I mean, they're not mindless cattle.

This particular order uses the Sacred Bovine Bible, in which the tenth commandment was mistakenly translated as "Thou shalt not comment on thy neighbor's false mustache."

 

Why would every nun leave after each ring? Either this is a typo, or the number of rings has something to do with when the nuns will leave.

You're on the right track.

 

I feel like the answer would have to do with the single nun who knows she has no mustache on her face, for example being the only one who isn't unsure, not leaving when the rest of the nuns cave.

 

Haha! I forgot that the one who painted all the mustaches knows that she doesn't have one. That's a clever deduction, but doesn't matter to the answer.

 

So, since it's been nearly 24 hours, and no one has gotten it yet, I'll drop a hint:

 

The thing that makes this difficult is that there are so many mustaches. What would happen if only one nun had a mustache? What about two? Remember, the nuns are all very logical, and they've already figured this out themselves.

 

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson

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I want to say, after ten rings, all ten who weren't sure if they had a mustache or not realize they must because they see ten nuns without mustaches. But that's assuming they know that there's exactly ten mustaches. With what we've been given, as far as they're aware there could only be nine. So after 10 rings, 10 nuns say, wait, there are only nine or ten nuns without mustaches. I might be one of them, but I might not. Then at 11, there must be ten mustaches, or people would've left at ten rings. So since I see 10 without mustaches and 9 with, I must have one myself. Everyone with a mustache and an overly-high IQ leaves at 11.

 

Did I get it? I'll think of a riddle if I did. I don't entirely grasp this hypothetical situation, but I think I got the answer, assuming there aren't any flaws in its conveyance.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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I'm not just off by one number right? I could just as easily have said 10 without realizing one might not know if there's 9 or 10. Or 12 because I don't know some kind of confirmation. My mind refuses to simulate this hypothetical further. I had some thought like, 9 leave at 10 and 1 leaves at 11, but I don't see what makes any one nun so special.

 

 

Or maybe there's some twist. 9 nuns leave at 11or12 and then the abbess realizes she herself has a mustache.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Haha! I was wondering if anyone would think of that possibility. You can ignore the abbess for the purposes of the answer. Ten of the nuns have mustaches, and it's up to you if you imagine the abbess with one or not.

 

 

In my headcanon, the abbess does have a mustache, but she's not as logical as the nuns, so she forgot to include herself in the problem when she said "Some of you have mustaches drawn on your faces." and she'll never find out.

 

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson

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