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sandwhales
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Five pirates are trying to split up 1000 gold pieces. The rules are as follows:
Pirate #5 must divide the gold up in such a way that a majority of the pirates (including himself) agree to. If he does not get a majority vote, he will be killed, and pirate #4 will get to propose a solution to the remaining 3 pirates, and the same rules will follow. This continues until someone comes up with a plan that earns a majority vote.
What is the most amount of gold pieces that pirate #5 can keep to himself, and what would his proposal be?
The pirates are infinitely greedy, infinitely ruthless (the more dead pirates the better), and infinitely intelligent.
Assume that the pirates value their own life over gold, but would love to see their comrades die even if for no apparent reason. A tiebreaker means the pirate that made the proposal is thrown overboard.
Now I solved the riddle, but I wanted to further develop it. For those of you that are interested, what would happen if there were an infinite amount of pirates? (Granted it can't be infinite as the gold runs out at some point)
This is where I get stuck, i can't seem to figure the riddle out for an infinite amount of pirates. What happens to the gold then?
Pirate #5 must divide the gold up in such a way that a majority of the pirates (including himself) agree to. If he does not get a majority vote, he will be killed, and pirate #4 will get to propose a solution to the remaining 3 pirates, and the same rules will follow. This continues until someone comes up with a plan that earns a majority vote.
What is the most amount of gold pieces that pirate #5 can keep to himself, and what would his proposal be?
The pirates are infinitely greedy, infinitely ruthless (the more dead pirates the better), and infinitely intelligent.
Assume that the pirates value their own life over gold, but would love to see their comrades die even if for no apparent reason. A tiebreaker means the pirate that made the proposal is thrown overboard.
Now I solved the riddle, but I wanted to further develop it. For those of you that are interested, what would happen if there were an infinite amount of pirates? (Granted it can't be infinite as the gold runs out at some point)
This is where I get stuck, i can't seem to figure the riddle out for an infinite amount of pirates. What happens to the gold then?
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