China DOS Union

Excellent, just thinking about it made my head spin, respect respect

Sheesh!
Who would use such a boring question!

Don't think this question is boring. Although the conditions are rather strange, it is actually a very good logic puzzle. I think KO came up with a good one. You could say this problem uses the three basic structures in programming. If anyone wants to be a programmer, and can't solve this problem, then they'd better not be one.

西西: that's a very nice-sounding name. I only remember watching the Sissi trilogy when I was little. I wonder whether you're that Sissi, hehe... Sorry, but boys are naturally stronger than girls in logical reasoning. It only took me five minutes to solve it. Although I'm not very smart, I do like hearing people praise me for being smart, so thanks. Very satisfying! As for final exams, it's already been many years since I've had a taste of that. I really want to enjoy it again. It's nice looking at you little girls.
That DAOKEDAO is probably some lurking MM too. Kuangxiang, shouldn't your MBI red group investigate that too.
KO: the question was too easy, bring out a harder one.

Okay, here's another classic one. Look at the new thread.

To be honest, I don't think it necessarily has to be three women..
If it's according to moderator YYS's explanation, then it could also be 48 women, because the question only says there must be women, it doesn't say there must be more men than women or more women than men~~
If moderator YYS's theory is stated like this, then it wouldn't be three women anymore:
1. If there were one man, then everything that man saw would be women. Since the condition says there must be women, then he could immediately determine that he is a man, so he should have gone to take a bath on the first day. But he didn't, so there was more than one man.
2. If there were two men, the first man would see 48 women and one man. He would think, if I were a woman, then that other man could immediately determine that he is a man, and he would go take a bath right away. But he didn't on the first day, so on the second day this first man could determine that he is not a woman, therefore he would go bathe. But he didn't bathe on the second day either, which shows there were not just two men either.
3. By the same reasoning, when there are three men, after the first two days, this first man can confirm that he is a man. So on the third day he can go take a bath.
Therefore, it can be concluded that there are 48 women.

DD, you're wrong. You can't reason like that. "Since the condition says there must be women, then he can immediately determine that he is a man" — there's no way to determine that he is a man, because the condition does not say there must be men; it's also possible that they are all women, so he cannot immediately determine that he is a man.

Then can she immediately determine that she is a woman?? It can't be that just because the condition says there must be women, she must determine that she is a woman, right~
If it's as you say, then it should be all women, not just three women, right~~

Oh dear, DD, you still don't understand. What I mean is that if you reason your way, then it could possibly be all women, but in fact it is three women. Because the condition says there must be women, so if there is one woman, then she can definitely determine that she is a woman. Could she still believe that she is a man? If she were a man, then that would contradict the condition.

How would it be all women by my reasoning??
Your reasoning is from the woman's point of view, but mine is from the man's point of view.
And does the question say that as long as you see other people's sex, you can immediately determine your own sex??

I'm new here, and I'd like to offer a little of my own view: could there be 3 women?

The following is quoted from what 6MuO8zz posted at 2003-6-16 8:22:40:
I'm new here, and I'd like to offer a little of my own view: could there be 3 women?

Then what's your reasoning??

The following is quoted from what Dark-Destroy posted at 2003-6-16 0:54:03:
To be honest, I don't think it necessarily has to be three women..
If it's according to moderator YYS's explanation, then it could also be 48 women, because the question only says there must be women, it doesn't say there must be more men than women or more women than men~~
If moderator YYS's theory is stated like this, then it wouldn't be three women anymore:
1. If there were one man, then everything that man saw would be women. Since the condition says there must be women, then he could immediately determine that he is a man, so he should have gone to take a bath on the first day. But he didn't, so there was more than one man.

Note: the question only says there must be women; it doesn't say there must be men, so DD's first inference does not hold.
Even if TA sees 49 women, TA still cannot determine that TA is a man.