For all those who love solving riddles (everyone?), here is an extremely thought provoking riddle I came across the other day.
Let's build a scenario. There was a country in an impoverished area of the world that was extremely rampant in corruption. Two news reporters worked feverently to expose the corrupt officials, they did so openly and ready to put their lives at risk. The leader of said country wouldn't have anything to do with this sort of bravery and had these two reporters brought in and jailed under many false and trumped up charges. Sure enough, soon these two were found guilty as charged and was sentenced to die
The two reporters were told that they were going to be put in seperate cells, completely cut off from all outside communication except with the warden. To induce a type of psychological torture, they were told that their execution would depend on a coin toss. If one of the prisoner is able to guess the outcome of the other's coin toss, they both live. If both of them get it wrong, they both die. If they both get it correct, they live.
The reporters were able to confer for a short period of time before imprisonment, to devise a way to ensure that one of them guesses the other's outcome correctly. The leader of the country, happy that in good time and based on pure probability that these two will die, put the scheme in motion
Alas, it was found that over a year, the reporters somehow guessed atleast one outcome of the coin toss correctly. The leader, suspecting that the warden or a guard was scheming secretly with the reporters, decided to take up the task himself and had the prisoners moved to separate and remote locations that no one else knew. Despite all these measures, the reporters still got atleast one guess correct and they lived.
While all this was going on, other reporters finally revealed the corruption and the leader was taken down along with his corrupt officials. The reporters walked free having survived something that surely should have resulted in their demise
What was the trick behind their survival?
