Teaser Tuesday! July 15, 2014

I guess that was assuming their are 5 white and 5 black hats. Even if their are more of one color than the other, I believe this would still be an optimal strategy because they have to assume their are 5 white and 5 black hats.

The prisoners would agree the night before to say the color of the hat of the person in front of them if they were not already told by the person behind them; the last person in line would have no idea, so he would just say the color hat of the 9th prisoner. The 9th prisoner obviously knows this, so he says his own color and saves his own life. The 8th person would have no idea, so he would just say the 7th persons color. This would continue and would allow every odd numbered prisoner to live every time, while the even numbered inmates would have a 50/50 chance of surviving, as their own hat may be the same color as the person in front of them. The odds live every time and the evens live half the time, making an expected value of 7.5, but I will round that up to 8.

Provided the first guy to say a color is not a total douche, I'm pretty sure he can save everyone except himself. All he needs to do is say: or vice versa. Then as each person says their hat color, the next person simply looks at all the ones in front of him and does the math.

I hope I did the html right

Okay, I used an apostrophe, even after mikesswimn specifically said not to. Let's try this again:

The tenth would say the color of the ninth's hood, so the ninth would live. The eight would say the color of the seventh's, so that the seventh would live. This would guarantee that 50% lived, and the others would each have a 50% chance of guessing correctly. This would make approximately 75% live.

The HTML didn't work for anyone

<input type="button" value="Answer" onclick="alert('Maybe this is cheating, but you could guarantee 9 lives saved and maybe 10 lives if the 10th guy guesses correctly. The 10th guy starts by saying the color of the hat in front of him. If it doesn't match the color of his OWN hat, he dies, but there is a possibility they match and he is able to survive.

If the 8th guy's hat is the same color as what the 10th person said, the 9th guy responds immediately after the executioner asks him the question. If the 8th guy's hat is NOT the same color as what the 10th guy said, the 9th will delay his response by 5 seconds before responding with what the 10th guy said his hat color was. This way, the 8th guy will know if it either is the same color (immediate response) or the opposite color (delayed response). This goes all the way to the 1st person, guaranteeing 9 lives with a 50% chance for the 10th guy to live.')">

The html should be {input type='button' value='Answer' onClick="alert('YOUR ANSWER HERE')"} surrounded with "" instead of "{"

Unless that doesn't work, then I have no idea.

I tried to fix mine, answers don't pop up when I click the button. Anyway, I think you can get 9 to live, 50/50 on the first guy

rule: high pitch voice for black, low pitch for white 10th guy yells out 9th guy's color, 9th guy yells out own color in a specific pitch according to the color of the person in front of him and so on and so forth. Only 10th guy is in jeopardy making it 9.5 prisoners alive on average.