Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Revolver Cylinder Puzzle

Yet another interesting puzzle :
Someone has kidnapped you and forced you to play a game of Russian Roulette ! Your kidnapper loads two bullets into adjacent chambers of an otherwise empty cylinder, and then spins the cylinder.

Then he presses the trigger ! Click ! Thankfully, the chamber was empty (this time!).

He then offers you a gamble : If you can survive the next round, he would set you free. To make it even better for you, he gives you two choices : One, he would spin the cylinder (randomly) before firing ; Two, he would just press the trigger now, without spinning.

Assuming that you would want to live through this encounter, what choice would you take? To spin or not to spin ?

Credits : Picture from howstuffworks , question from here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't spin. 75% chance of survival.
Versus 66% chance if you spin.

The Negative Man said...

Congrats. Correct answer.