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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Alex Bellos

BIZARRE: Can you solve it prisoners and boxes - What They Never Told You

Piper in the Netflix TV series Orange is the New Black.
Piper (Taylor Schilling) in Netflix’s Orange is the New Black. Photograph: Lionsgate Television/Sportsphoto/Allstar

Today’s puzzle involves two prisoners. Let’s call them Piper and Alex. You will be asked to find a strategy that wins them their freedom.

Puzzles about prison escape strategies are a relatively new genre of mathematical challenge, only a few decades old. They emerged from computer science. A prison – a place where access to information is limited – is a perfect venue for puzzles about the efficient communication of information.

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