A Riddle For Your Brain Box (With A Prize)
by Miki SaxonI’ve always said that no one ever really thinks outside their box, they just keep enlarging it. Rather than reprinting these posts, please read three of them here.
And here’s a riddle for a bit of box stretching and Friday fun.
Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain.
He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter.
Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.
1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven.
2) If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven.
3) If she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.
They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.
Logically, there are three choices,
- The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
- The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.
- The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.
But is there a fourth and better way out of the dilemma?
Take a moment to share your idea in comments and if you’re correct I’ll send you a management book (chosen based on your interests). If more than one of you gets it right the winner will be chosen using random.org.
I’ll post the answer next Friday, be sure to come back and see if your mind achieved what the girl’s did.
Image credit: piblet on flickr
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June 12th, 2009 at 11:34 am
“Ahhh, fair money lender. White should be for Marriage don’t you know. I would hate to start our life together under the fate of a black stone. Let blackness keep us apart, but whiteness start our life together. Agree and I am ready to draw!”
June 12th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Hi Fred, that would work only in the best of all possible worlds, which this isn’t.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:18 am
The girl could hide a white pebble in her hand and pretend to draw it from the bag. Would need a bit of practice though.
Alternatively she can pick the two pebbles and expose the trick.
Regardless she need to arrange for a “good” set of witnesses. There is otherwise no guarantee the lender will keep his side of the bargain.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Hi Denis, both good ideas, but not correct. Her solution was more creative and didn’t require practice.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I have to say I like Fred’s answer even if it isn’t correct!
It sounds like it comes straight out of a book of fairy tales.
I cannot seem to “thick outside of the box” enough to come up with a guess today. I am looking forward to the answer!
June 15th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Spelling is not one of my skills today! That was supposed to be “think” not thick!
I was blaming my bad spelling on the small keyboard of my netbook but I’m on a full size keyboard now, lol!
June 15th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Not to worry, Julie, lately I’ve been hitting ‘c’ for ‘n’ every time I type ‘think’.
Fred’s answer only works if she wants to marry the guy, which she doesn’t.
Denis is closest. Put on your thinking cap, ask your friends and colleagues at work. After all, you have all week:)
June 15th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I know I should be able to figure this out, because I have heard a similar story about scraps of paper. In that story, the girl swallows one of the scraps of paper, and tells the man that the one she swallowed is the one she chooses. Thus, the man must open the other paper, and he is forced to let her go free. So, in this case, the girl could take a bag with a stone should ask the man to take one stone and throw it into the water. When he does so, she can say “The stone you have thrown into the sea is the one I am choosing.” Once the man reveals that the remaining stone is black, he will be forced to let her go in order to maintain his honor.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Hi again Miki
I just realized that I typed the wrong, not even a real email address into the last comment.
Also wanted to tell you that I came over here to leave a comment because of your most recent post at Leadership Turn.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Thanks, Becky, I didn’t mean to sound like I was begging. Part of the problem is that the blog isn’t optimized for Google and I don’t know how to change the settings.
Doesn’t it make you crazy when you can’t remember stuff. You are very close, but I don’t see the guy cooperating with her that way. After all, he is a cad:)
Actually, the other email looks like a personal address:)