Individuals have been left scratching their heads over a tough brainteaser that Google used to ask candidates in job interviews – can you determine the proper reply?
In case you’ve ever puzzled what it takes to get a job at Google, it appears problem-solving abilities and ‘pondering exterior of the field’ as important to a profitable interview. Based on TikTok creator Tanya Zakowich, who is named @pinkpencilmath on social media, Google used to ask its job candidates a brainteaser of their interviews – and did not rent anybody who failed it.
Nevertheless, in 2013 Google is believed to have scaled again these questions, with former chief of Google human sources telling the New York Occasions they could not “predict something” and primarily have been there to “make the interviewer really feel sensible”.
In a video, she stated: “If you do not know the prisoner hat riddle, you are going to love this one. It is a tremendous basic brainteaser that was generally requested in job interviews at Google.” Explaining the riddle, she says: “There have been 4 prisoners on a staircase all going through the identical course. A brick wall separates prisoner 4 from the remaining.”
She says prisoner 1 can see prisoners 2 and three, whereas prisoner 2 can solely see prisoner 3 and prisoners 3 and 4 can’t see anybody.
“All 4 prisoners are sporting hats. They’re instructed there are solely two black hats and white white hats. Nevertheless, they have no idea the color of the hats they’re personally sporting.
“The prisoners have been instructed to shout out the color of the hat they’re sporting as quickly as they know what color it’s.”
Figuring out this, she says the query is: “Who’s the primary individual to shout out appropriately – and why?”
Setting out the foundations, the prisoners can’t flip round to take a look at one another, transfer in some other formation, or take their very own hats off.
Commenting on the brainteaser, one person stated: “Prisoner two. If each prisoner two and three have been sporting the identical hat, one would have recognized that he was sporting the opposite hat. However since he didn’t, two is aware of that.”
One other person added: “Two as he can use one’s silence to deduce that two and three have totally different color hats. Since two can see three then two have to be the other color of three.”
A 3rd person stated: “4 as a result of he knew nobody was taking a look at him so he took his hat off to look.”
Yet one more person added: “I used to provide this riddle to my math college students on a regular basis. It’s two as a result of one didn’t say something so that they know they’re totally different from three.”
Reply
Based on Puzzles and Riddles, the proper reply is prisoner two – known as B of their clarification.
A press release reads: “If prisoners B and C had the identical color hat on, prisoner A would have know instantly that his hat was the opposite color (there are solely two hats of every color).
“Since prisoner A was silent, prisoners B and C will need to have totally different colored hats. Prisoner B realised this and knew that his hat was not the identical color as prisoner C, due to this fact his hat have to be black!”
