Walking along the Palo Alto farmer's market with C3, my friend from Caltech.
Me: "Guess who was on the same flight as me two weeks ago? I'll give you ten yes-or-no questions."
C3: "Is it someone I know from Caltech?"
Me: "Yes."
C3: "Is it someone in your graduating class?"
Me: "Yes."
C3: "Ah, now I must be able to guess it, because there are fewer than 257 people in your graduating class."
:)
Later:
C3: "This is going to yield less than one bit of information, but ... is it a guy?"
Me: "No."
C3: "Oh! That was more than 1 bit of information."
...
(He didn't guess it in the end.)
Wow, that took me a moment. Kudos to C3.
ReplyDelete(and I doubt I would have thought to employ such a process.)
On further thought, I think the first question should be a partition by house, and then by gender, before working through names.
ReplyDeleteooh BUUUURN!
ReplyDeleteOn even further thought, it's clear I forgot what a yes-no question is.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe C3 failed.
ReplyDeleteunbelievable....he must have wasted a bit or two somewhere.
ReplyDelete