Knights and knaves

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Knights and Knaves are a type of logic puzzle devised by Raymond Smullyan.

On a fictional island, all inhabitants are either knights, who always tell the truth, or knaves, who always lie. The puzzles involve a visitor to the island who meets small groups of inhabitants. Usually the aim is for the visitor to deduce the inhabitants' type from their statements, but some puzzles of this type ask for other facts to be deduced. The puzzle may also be to determine a yes/no question which the visitor can ask in order to discover what he needs to know.

An early example of this type of puzzle involves three inhabitants referred to as A, B and C. The visitor asks A what type he is, but does not hear A's answer. B then says "A said that he is a knave" and C says "Don't believe B: he is lying!"

To solve the puzzle, note that no inhabitant can say that he is a knave. Therefore B's statement must be untrue, so he is a knave, making C's statement true, so he is a knight. It is not possible to determine whether A is a knight or knave from the information provided.

In some variations, inhabitants may also be alternators, who alternate between lying and telling the truth, or normals, who can say whatever they want (as in the case of Knight/Knave/Spy puzzles). A further complication is that the inhabitants may answer yes/no questions in their own language, and the visitor knows that "bal" and "da" mean "yes" and "no" but does not know which is which. These types of puzzles were a major inspiration for what has become known as 'The hardest logic puzzle ever'.

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[edit] Some Examples of "Knights and Knaves" puzzles

A large class of elementary logical puzzles can be solved using the laws of boolean algebra and logic truth tables. Familiarity with boolean algebra and its simplification process is a prerequisite to understand the following examples. In particular, to solve Question 2 you must understand that the only way that an "if X then Y" statement can be false is for X to be true and Y to be false.

John and Bill are residents of the island of knights and knaves.

[edit] Question 1

John says: We are both knaves.

Who is who?

[edit] Question 2

John: If Bill is a knave then I'm a knight.

Bill: We are different.

Who is who?

[edit] Question 3

Logician: Are you both knights?
John answers either Yes or No, but the Logician does not have enough information to solve the problem.
Logician: Are you both knaves?
John answers either Yes or No, and the Logician can now solve the problem.

Who is who?

[edit] Question 4

Here is a rendition of perhaps the most famous of this type of puzzle:

John and Bill are standing at a fork in the road. You know that one of them is a knight and the other a knave, but you don't know which. You also know that one road leads to Someplaceorother, and the other leads to Nowheresville.

  • By asking one yes/no question, can you determine the road to Someplaceorother?
  • By asking one yes/no question, can you determine whether John is a knight?

This version of the puzzle was further popularised by a scene in the 1980's fantasy film, Labyrinth, in which Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) finds herself faced with two doors each guided by a two-headed knight. One door leads to the castle at the centre of the labyrinth, and one to certain doom.

[edit] Solution to Question 1

This is what John is saying in a more extended form:

"John is a knave and Bill is a knave."

If John was a knight, he would not be able to say that he was a knave since he would be lying. Therefore the statement "John is a knave" must be true.

Since knaves lie, and one statement is true, the other statement must be false. Therefore the statement "Bill is a knave" must be false which leads to the conclusion that Bill is a knight.

The solution is that John is a knave and Bill is a knight.

[edit] Solution to Question 1, using Boolean algebra

We can use Boolean algebra to deduce who's who as follows:

Let J be true if John is a knight and let B be true if Bill is a knight. Now, either John is a knight and what he said was true, or John is not a knight and what he said was false. Translating that into Boolean algebra, we get:

(J \wedge (\neg J \wedge \neg B)) \vee (\neg J \wedge \neg (\neg J \wedge \neg B))
\equiv {\rm false} \vee (\neg J \wedge \neg (\neg J \wedge \neg B)) (because J \wedge \neg J \equiv {\rm false})
\equiv \neg J \wedge \neg (\neg J \wedge \neg B) (because {\rm false}\vee X \equiv X)
\equiv \neg J \wedge (J \vee B) (by de Morgan's law)
\equiv (\neg J \wedge J) \vee (\neg J\wedge B) (by the law of distributivity)
\equiv \neg J\wedge B

Therefore John is a knave and Bill is a knight. Although most people can solve this puzzle without using Boolean algebra, the example still serves as a testament of the power of Boolean algebra in solving logic puzzles.

[edit] Knights and Knaves puzzles in popular culture

  • In the role-playing console video game Final Fantasy VI (released as Final Fantasy III for the US market on the Super NES), the town of Zozo contains a knights and knaves puzzle that rewards the player for resolving it and applying the answer to an item in the town.
  • Near the end of the PC game The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard, a spin-off of The Elder Scrolls series, the daedra Clavicus Vile poses a simple version of the knight and knaves puzzle for the hero, Cyrus, to solve.
  • The PC game Dragonsphere has a variation of the knight and knaves where several faeries constantly alternate colors. A certain faerie may or may not change its state (always lie, always tell the truth) depending on its color. The puzzle is made even more difficult by the fact that they are always moving, making it difficult to identify an individual faerie.
  • In the movie Labyrinth, Sarah must solve a knights-and-knaves puzzle to determine which is the correct door to open.

[edit] External links

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