jdus...@yuma.Princeton.EDU (Jonathan G. Dushoff) wrote in message news:<9nvvmk$nmo$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>...
Marnix Klooster <mklo...@baan.nl> wrote:
: "Fact 5. Given any male inhabitant X, if Bernardo is a follower of Alfredo
: and X, then the barber is a follower of X alone."
Thanks! That means my notes of the problem were correct, and that
this problem is inconsistent (whether or not you allow X=Y and
X=Z in the definitions of 'follower'). (See my other post in this
thread, and http://www.geocities.com/mklooster/calc/tmam-3-7.html,
for a proof.)
I haven't found a complete list of the facts, but I am guessing that the intended meaning is "the barber is a follower of X", and that theHello Jonathan,
"alone" was added as a misguided attempt at emphasizing the fact that "follower of X" is a _stronger_ condition than "follower of X and Y".
Does this interpretation make the problem work?
You're completely correct; I hadn't thought of this interpretation.
(Although looking back at my old notes, I had noticed that the word
"alone" was superfluous.) I was looking for a deeper meaning in that
word, which there wasn't. Ah, those formal mathematicians. They even
try to interpret plain English as logic :-)
I've updated the page that I mentioned above to reflect the correct interpretation, and the corresponding proof.
Groetjes,
<><
Marnix
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Marnix Klooster
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