Monday, November 16, 2009

Jealous Housewives Puzzle



In an attempt to select new actors for the Jealous Housewives sequel, movie studios invited a number of married couples to spend time in a secluded village. Most of the couples stayed faithful to each other, as everyone knew that in the Jealous Housewives spirit a woman will kill her husband at night if she hears of his infidelity. With a lot of spare time on their hands, all the participants were involved in a heavy gossiping, so that someone's infidelity would be immediately known to everyone except from his/her spouse, as even gossipers were not keen on the bloody ending. Other than these couples, no movie crew was present in this village. Participants were filmed by hidden cameras. After a week of such leisure life, a series director stopped by and revealed a secret: "Someone from the participants has been unfaithful." Next night everybody expected a bloody outcome, but nothing happened. The night after that everyone appeared to still be alive. Seven tense but peaceful nights passed. On the eights morning a few men did not come to the breakfast table. How many men were killed that night?

This puzzle was suggested by W., details found on the Grey Labyrinth site.

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

Image by Steelight, via Flicker distributed under CCL.

4 comments:

Wang said...

A very cool puzzle with an ingenious answer - I won't ruin it of course but cool to see the Grey Labryinth site mentioned - very interesting puzzle site for anybody not getting their fix from this blog :P

Maria said...

I know it is a very tricky one. Giving it a few more hours. Will reveal the answer tonight if no one will figure it out before that.

To begin to untangled this, think of what happens on the first night if there is one infidelity in the village.

Claire said...

First, I have to say that I visited Grey Labryinth... I think MathMom is much easier on my mind. GL fried my brain last night. And, I cheated and saw their version of this puzzle, so I wont post the answer... :)

Maria said...

We also have these nice perks here: cool supportive crowd, prizes and you can even find yourself in a puzzle.

The Jealous Housewives Puzzle above is a great one to impress your friends and co-workers, or just random acquaintance. High school kids should get it as well and think that you are a really hip parent. Here is how it goes:

If there is one infidelity in this village, then in the first night after director leaves, there would be one woman that did not hear any gossip. As she now knows that someone is cheating and she should have heard about this through rumors if it would not be her husband, she will realize that it is him and ... kill him. It is a Jealous Housewives casting after all!

This did not happen on the first night, therefore there is more than one infidelity in this village. Everyone realizes that and counts the infidelity rumors they have heard. If there is a wife that heard only one infidelity rumor, she knows now that the second one is about her husband and therefore will... kill him on the second night. For two affairs, there should be two of these wives and two dead bodies. But this does not happen. Therefore, we have more than two infidelities.

Every morning after uneventful night, villagers realize that there is one more infidelity and wives compare it with the number of rumors that they have heard about. If they heard about all of them or more, they stay calm. If any wife is missing a rumor - her husband is involved. But we get no dead bodies on the third, fourth, fifth or six's nights. After six's night, everyone knows that there should be seven infidelities. Seven women who only knew about six infidelities realize it during the day and.. we get seven bodies in the morning.

The answer to the puzzle is seven bodies, one for each night. Brrr, very scary, but what a beautiful logic.

A cheerful puzzle tomorrow.

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.