Thiefs

smart_coder · #21 (**permalink**) 01-31-2007

If there were only 2 thiefs, thief 1 being the most senior, he would just vote for himself so he's obviously going to keep all the money for himself.

Now if there are 3 thiefs:
thief1 already knows what happens when there are 2 thiefs (thief 1 takes all the money himself and gives nothing to thief 2). So thief 1 proposes that he will take 99 gold coins and give 1 coin to thief 3. So, thief 3 says, well, 1 is better than none, and since i know if i don't vote for thief 1, I get nothing, I should vote for this plan.

If u work out on this futher considering the case for 4 thiefs and then finally for 5 thiefs u will reach d solution told earlier!!

princeavi · #22 (**permalink**) 06-19-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by smart_coder

There are 5 thiefs and they rob a bag of gold coins in it. There were 100 gold coins.They decided to divide the gold coins among themselves.
There was a seniority level among the thiefs.
1 means highest seniority and 5 means lowest seniority .
So dey decided that thief with the highest seniority will propose a method to divide gold coins and then there wud b a polling. If there is atleast 50% majority in favour of him then his proposal will b accepted otherwise other thiefs will kill him and now the next seniormost thief will propose a method and again a polling will held..nd the story goes on....
The thiefs are equally greedy and equally intelligent.
What proposal wud u put if u were been the senior most thief ?

Can u plz give me the logic of the solution..
m not able to get it..

jainbrijesh · #23 (**permalink**) 06-19-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by smart_coder

There are 5 thiefs and they rob a bag of gold coins in it. There were 100 gold coins.They decided to divide the gold coins among themselves.
There was a seniority level among the thiefs.
1 means highest seniority and 5 means lowest seniority .
So dey decided that thief with the highest seniority will propose a method to divide gold coins and then there wud b a polling. If there is atleast 50% majority in favour of him then his proposal will b accepted otherwise other thiefs will kill him and now the next seniormost thief will propose a method and again a polling will held..nd the story goes on....
The thiefs are equally greedy and equally intelligent.
What proposal wud u put if u were been the senior most thief ?

The answer may be we all will take 25 coins each from level 1 to level 4 but the level 5 will not get anything.Hence the polling result will also be maximum 75%(3 out of 4 will favor this), why?

because if 2nd level thief think that he can gain more than he can't, because after killing one, still there will 4 to divide 100, again option of 25 each.same for 3rd and 4th.5th will be the only loser and vote against, but who care?

kiranaar10728 · #24 (**permalink**) 06-17-2008

i dont think anyone wud uphold the proposal.unless u r allowed to give 2 proposal.

PPROPOSAL 1 PROPOSAL 2
thief1(me)=98 theif1(me)=98
thief 2=1 thief2=0
thief 3 =0 thief3=1
thief 4=1 thief4=0
thief 5 =0 thief5=1

2nd and 4th thief wud fear that if the first proposal is not accepted,3rd and 5th may accept the second proposal,and in that case they wud get nothing.the same will be the thought of 3rd and 5th that if they dont accept the second proposal 2nd and 4th may go with the 1st proposal and they wud get nothing.so there will be competition among (2nd and 4th) to accept the first proposal and (3rd and 5th) to accept the 2nd proposal and reject 1st proposal.
in either case i'll get more than 50% vote and max reward as well.sometimes other thieves may fight with each other and kill each other, so that i can take away everything.....

howzzzaaattt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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