But How?

OK, if you already know this one, please don't ruin it for other people or anything. That would suck. If you don't know it but think you know the answer, then PM me. You get one guess. Well, you can have one guess per 30 posts in this thread.

Now. The rules are simple - Guess how it was done.

A man walks into a two-room shack. It's impossible to get from one room to the other without going outside - the rooms are not connected with doors. In one room, there are three identical light switches. In the next room, there are there identical lights. The man goes into each room once and straight away he knows which switch leads to each light. How does he know?

is each light and switch a different colour

Edit: say a green switch a red switch, and a blue switch, and there are lights of the same colour...just to clarify my question

Are the switches/lights labelled?

Are there visible wires in either room?

Has the man ever been into the shack before?

How big are the light bulbs?

Is the shack more than ten feet tall?

The lights are identical - all normal light bulbs. No colour coding or anything. No labels. No visible wiring. The man has never seen the shack in his life, nor any plans of it.

The light bulbs are regular sized light bulbs.

The shack is 500 feet tall. It's a really tall shack.

Would he break his hand trying to change one of the light bulbs?

Did he go into the switch room first?

are there any windows?

is the positioning of the lights/switches relevant to which light goes with which switch

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

Would he break his hand trying to change one of the light bulbs?

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BURN IN HELL. I mean no.

As for which room he went into first, this isn't a yes/no thing so that's up to you to figure out. ;) This is a "Guess how he did it" one.

There are no windows. There is, however, a lovely sunroof in the room with the switches, and the sun lights up the room quite easily.

The positioning of the lightbulbs is completely irrelevant.

What? I asked it in yes/no fashion! :mad2:

Well, you can ask questions about the shack, but as for how he did it, you have to guess which order and so on - that's up to you. Basically, you are the man who is doing this, you just have to figure out how to do it... but you can ask me anything you like about the shack.

Did the man know which switch went to each light before he left the shack and went to the second room?

I can't tell you what the man did, but no, there was no way to tell which switch went to which light without entering both rooms.

Hmm 500 foot tall shack, sunroof in room with switches. Position of lights is irrelevant. Were any of the lights on before the man entered the shack?

Anyone get this right yet?

Yes, I got it right.

hint:
The sunroof is only active during daytime, and the sprinklers go off in the nighttime.

I like the way BoB keeps adding stipulations as it goes, seemingly to refute answers he's already received that are completely plausible based on the information in the original post.

One of the switches is turned up, and one of the lights is on. The other two are stupid.

he has night vision goggles....

Ok, he goes into the switch room first. He turns one switch to the on position. He turns another to the off position. He sits in the room for two hours waiting then turns the third light on. He then runs to the other room, feels which of the two illuminated bulbs is hot to the touch, and then knows which is which.

The riddle says "straight away," which I interpreted to mean "instantly."

He installed them?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

Ok, he goes into the switch room first. He turns one switch to the on position. He turns another to the off position. He sits in the room for two hours waiting then turns the third light on. He then runs to the other room, feels which of the two illuminated bulbs is hot to the touch, and then knows which is which.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by BoB

OK, if you already know this one, please don't ruin it for other people or anything. That would suck. If you don't know it but think you know the answer, then PM me. You get one guess. Well, you can have one guess per 30 posts in this thread.

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Luckily I PMed him this answer before you posted it :cool:

I like Meat Puppet's answer.

Also, a little nit-picky... how is it that there is a two-room shack where one is forced to go outside to get from one room to the next? Wouldn't that be two seperate buildings?