Encyclopedia Brown's cockroach inequation
Jun. 7th, 2012 05:42 pm(All quotes approximate.)
Hunter: I saw 4 cockroaches in the building today. They all moved kind of slowly. Now I suppose 2 of them or even 3 or 4 of them could have been the same; I didn't see any two of them simultaneously. Only one of them was successfully killed.
[Simultaneously]
Julian: Was it the last one?
Me: And it was the last one.
Hunter: Woah... how did you know?
Me: If it weren't the last one, you would have known that two of them were distinct.
Hunter: Huh. I would not have figured that out. This is like a story from Encyclopedia Brown, and I would have just looked in the back of the book.
Hunter: I saw 4 cockroaches in the building today. They all moved kind of slowly. Now I suppose 2 of them or even 3 or 4 of them could have been the same; I didn't see any two of them simultaneously. Only one of them was successfully killed.
[Simultaneously]
Julian: Was it the last one?
Me: And it was the last one.
Hunter: Woah... how did you know?
Me: If it weren't the last one, you would have known that two of them were distinct.
Hunter: Huh. I would not have figured that out. This is like a story from Encyclopedia Brown, and I would have just looked in the back of the book.
