About

‘5 Pirates, 100 Pieces of Gold’ refers to my favorite logic puzzle, which goes like this:

There are five pirates, ranked 1 to 5, with pirate 1 being the head pirate. They have 100 pieces of gold to split amongst themselves. They agree that the head pirate will propose how to split the money. Once the proposal is made, all pirates (including the head pirate) will vote. If the head pirate garners 50% or more of the vote, the motion passes and they divide the money as proposed. If the head pirate fails to get 50% of the vote, he is forced to walk the plank, and the remaining 4 pirates repeat the process. The logically perfect pirates are first and foremost greedy, but given no financial gain in any possible decision, they’ll vote to spill blood and kill the head pirate. What should the head pirate propose to a) keep his neck and b) maximize his profit?

I’m not sure exactly what this blog will contain, and I don’t know how often I will update it, but I hope you find it either logical, useful, or enjoyable.

If you want the answer to the logic puzzle, here’s a good explanation. They make pirate 5 the head pirate (being a computer scientist, I suppose I should have started with pirate 0), but the puzzle is otherwise identical.