Hey all, I'm sorry to say that this post has virtually no Belle and Sebatian conten; so if you don't like this riddle stuff, you'd best not waste your time and read further. O.K., so after racking my brain (is that even an expression?) for many a moon, here is what I would do if I were one of those prisoner types in the riddle: They designate one prisoner as the "counter". I know, we could call him Stuart or The Major (now there's some content!). (Alternatively, and slightly more efficiently, they agree that the person who goes in on day 2 as the counter, for reasons which shall soon be apparent.) (Even more efficiently, they can designate the person who goes in on day 3. More on that later.) The prisoners (other than the counter) follow the following rules: If the bulb is off, and if they have never turned the bulb on before, they turn in on. Otherwise, they do nothing with the light. The counter does this: If the light is on, he turns it off and adds one to his count. If the light is off, he does nothing. If he has turned the light off 99 times, he declares that everyone has been in the room and they all go free. I haven't worked out the average time this will take, but I'm quite sure it's something over 9,900 days. (9,900 days is the average amount of time it will take for the counter to enter the room 99 times. Since some times he enters, the light will be off - because no one new has entered since his previous visit - the average time will be longer.) The slight efficiency improvement has to do with modifying the rules for the first two days and naming the person on day 3 as the "counter". The first day, the person turns the light on. On the second day, if it's a new person, he leaves the light on. If it's the same person as day 1, he turns if off. The counter arrives on day 3. If the light is on, he starts his count at 2. If the light is off, he starts his count at 1. Voila and they all go free to discuss the merits of Storytelling! Well maybe not quite so voila, seeing how this would still take at a minimum over 27 years. Maybe they all have life sentences though and 27 years seems like a happy enough alternative. Whadya think, eh? Again, sorry for no B and S content, but I thought that there might be some people who would find even a highly inefficient solution at least interesting to gnaw on for a while. "And now we rise, and we are everywhere" Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+