One day, the abbot of a temple brought seven monks to the backyard. He first asked six of the monks to form a circle, then had the remaining monk stand inside the circle, positioned in a way that could block the line of sight of the monks in the circle directly across from him. Next, he told them all to sit down and close their eyes to meditate.\ Then, the abbot put a hat on each of the seven monks—four black hats and three yellow hats.\ Finally, he asked the six monks in the circle to open their eyes, and then posed the question: do all seven monks know the color of the hat they are wearing?\ The six monks looked at each other, remaining silent for a long time. But at this point, the monk inside the circle, who had his eyes closed, accurately stated the color of his own hat.\ Question: What color hat was he wearing, and how did he know?
\ Prize: 5 million, limited to the first three correct answers only.
reasoning questions
Replies (10)
The answer is black. None of the six people knew there was a problem with the arrangement. If you were a monk in the circle, the colors you could know (see) would only be 5, which means no matter where you looked, there would always be 1 yellow and 1 black that you couldn't see. This means the yellows must all be on the monks in the circle, leaving only blacks. Don't understand looking at the arrangement? Here it is: Yellow Black Black Black Yellow Yellow Black. Got it?
Black is because the other six were flattened and I didn't know how to answer, so the extra one is the monk with closed eyes.
— All replies loaded —