Three men of different skin colors wearing shoes of their skin colors met and exchanged their shoes so that each had one shoe of the other two...Read on...
The Riddle
A red-skinned man, a black-skinned man and a white-skinned man wearing shoes of their skin color met on the way and became friends. As a gesture of their friendship, they exchanged their shoes between them so that at the end each wore one shoe of the other two.
How many minimum number of shoes you need to look at to tell what shoes each wore in both feet? It will help you to know that you can see the man's skin color as you look at his shoe.
Recommended time to solve 3 minutes.
Don't think in random. Focus on the useful patterns in the puzzle.
Solution to the Skin color and Shoe color puzzle
Knowing what to look for, you take no time to identify the two key conditions in the puzzle:
- Skin color of a man and colors of both his shoes are different. For example, the black man must be wearing a white shoe and a red shoe.
- The color of the shoe a man wears, say on his left foot, must have its matching pair of same color shoe on the right foot of one of the other two men.
With full awareness of these two key conditions, you just look at any ONE shoe of a man and his skin color to confidently tell the colors of shoes the three men wore in their right and left foot.
Take an example. You looked at the left foot shoe of the black man to find the color of the shoe red. You will know for sure that,
- the black man must be wearing a white shoe on his right foot.
- the matching pair of right foot red shoe must be on the right foot of the white man.
- the white man must be wearing a black shoe on his left foot, and,
- the red man must have a black shoe on his right foot and a white shoe on his left foot.
It all is a matter of matching pairs and colors satisfying the two condition all the while.
Simple, isn't it? Of course you have to identify and use the two key conditions.
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