Braingle: 'Four People in a Race' Brain Teaser

Four People in a Race

Logic puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.

Puzzle ID:	#20248
Fun:	(2.89)
Difficulty:	(1.68)
Category:	Logic
Submitted By:	tsimkin

John, Paul, George, and Ringo all enter a race, but there is nobody at the finish line to judge the ending. When the judge finally shows up to award the prize for coming in first, these are the statements the four of them make:

John: I was neither first nor last.
Paul: I did not finish last.
George: I won the race!
Ringo: I came in last.

The judge starts to hand George the prize, when Yoko, who was watching the race, says, "Exactly one of these four is lying."

To whom should the judge grant the prize?

Answer

The prize should go to Paul.

If John is lying, then George and Ringo would be telling the truth, which would mean John was not lying, so he can't be the liar.

If Paul was lying, then Ringo would also be lying, so he must be telling the truth, as well.

So we now know that neither John nor Paul finished last. If Ringo was lying, then George would have finished last, which would mean that he was lying, as well. So Ringo can't be lying.

This leaves George as our liar, so we know George did not finish first. Neither did Ringo (he finished last), nor did John (he finished neither first nor last). Therefore, Paul won the race!
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Comments

Hamster05 Jan 05, 2005	It was too simple. I hate it
luv_yaz69 Jan 06, 2005	i liked it!! you see, at first i didnt get it, but then after i looked at it for like another hour, i finally got it, great teaser!!!! luv_yaz!!
glimpse Jan 06, 2005	I bet baffeled cant think of anything more original!Quick teaser tsimkin..not every one is supposed to take your brain powers
knbrain Jan 06, 2005	What if Yoko was lying?
mnkelvr102 Jan 06, 2005	this is a family oriented site and i think you should say you're sorry baffled!!!
gwshark44 Jan 07, 2005	my gosh - Baffled, you are completely insane!! I'd suggest you not sepnd the one hour a week the nut house allocates you for the interent to read brain teasers!!! That was completely unnecessary and crazy - angry, angry little man. Baffle - please direct me to a brainteaser you have posted that is so brilliant?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
(user deleted) Jan 11, 2005	That was an easy one
toast9897 Jan 17, 2005	I wish we had spell check on this website. I can understand complaining about a rude comment (which i have not read), but don't say somebody is stupid if you can't even spell the word ("stupidty" is not a word).
Riki Feb 07, 2005	Darn! I always miss the comments that this person (baffled) has to say! But on a more positive note, I enjoyed your teaser. It was alot of fun. Thank you.
BAdHaBitS_005 Feb 07, 2005	I am so smart I figured out a teaser!!!!
moonieboonie Feb 07, 2005	I'm stoopid i'm stoopid i'm stoopid i'm stoopid i'm stoopid. This was a fun one...even thought I went at it completely the wrong way! Ooooooops. I tried to figure it out from the whole grid angle...which (DUH) obviously doesn't work if someone was lying! Good one. Oh, and who is this "baffled" jerk anyway? The word is "S-T-U-P-I-D-I-T-Y". (Yes, my misspelling was intentional...gives more weight to my confession of "stoopiditee"
tessa Feb 07, 2005	Love it!!!!
HughJazz510 Feb 07, 2005	that was a really easy teaser but is still liked it a lot ( i like things that i can get correct)
I_am_the_0mega Feb 07, 2005	Doesn't get much easier than this, but it wasn't bad.
smarty_pants Feb 07, 2005	Nice teaser but i assumed that only the ones that were alive were racing even though it said all four so i only kept Ringo and Paul. then it said Ringo finished in last place so i took his word for it and guessed Paul and i was right. Great teaser man
100riddles Feb 07, 2005	This was really confusing! I didn't really like it!!
Araldite Feb 07, 2005	I'm glad they cleaned up the comments, based on what some people said. Not everyone is good at logic and you need to have an easy one once in a while so they can get it. There are other sites if you want only very difficult puzzles. I consider this site to be for the general public.
fuzzie277 Feb 07, 2005	This was a tough one. Always think I have a logical mind, then something like this comes along and takes me down a peg. Thank you for a lot of fun.
book_worm_77 Feb 07, 2005	That was fun! Even though it was easy... so, I take it you are a Beatles fan, eh? Awesome! Great Teaser!
stormtrooper Feb 07, 2005	Does this guy like the Beatles?
cookeechick05 Feb 07, 2005	Hcut3 I'm with toast9897. If you can't spell a word right don't use it And really don't use it while calling somone else stupid. It just makes you sound stupid.
Raza Feb 08, 2005	. Took me hardly a couple of minutes to crack this one. Liked it!!
trailme247 Feb 08, 2005	What in Hades was that? Obviously Baffled has to much spare time, GEEZZZ!
ponytailedone Feb 08, 2005	someone mentioned "what if yoko was lying"? the brain teaser question was phrased as a 'problem', so the answer would have to be obtained 'logically or mathmatically'. if the question was phrased 'philosophically' or 'rhetorically', then yoko may have been in the equation.or maybe someone was just trying to get a laugh like I would!
dogfanatic77 Feb 08, 2005	that's pretty good, i like it! keep up the good work even though a lot of people might critisize you!
funnybunny1195 Feb 08, 2005	That was hard
sweetpeao4o3 Feb 08, 2005	that was easy. Hamster, go eat worms!
sweetpeao4o3 Feb 08, 2005	Who is "baffled"? everyone keeps saying"its" name! its really annoying!
(user deleted) Feb 08, 2005	This was too complex to be fun.
TK_baka Feb 09, 2005	Heh... this was interesting. I got the answer right easily, but when I looked at the answer given - it looks sooo complicated moreso then what I thought! >< Really there is no need to think so much for this. Just think logically at the plain words in front of you.
melilyn Feb 09, 2005	haha, I just assumed that George was lying. Oh well. Still got it right
justanumber Feb 14, 2005	Wow!! this one was easy but hard to catch it
sweetpeao4o3 Mar 06, 2005	Who is "Baffeled"?????
brandiMcBride20 Feb 10, 2006	These comments are more baffeling then the riddle, but I enjoyed it.
jsdodgers Sep 13, 2006	Great one
annonimus Jun 07, 2009	I got it right, but not for a while. For some reason, I thought that Yoko used the clues to FIGURE OUT that someone was lying. Once I re-read the thing, it was pretty easy.
bradon182001 Jun 07, 2009	Logical. Thanks for posting.
builder Jun 07, 2009	for some reason I really like this type of teaser. They take some time and I usually need to write things down in order to answer them. For this reason I need to give this a moderate level instead of easy.
doehead Jun 07, 2009	Considering it was the Beatles racing,they were all winners.
Barticus Jun 07, 2009	I go with Knbrain: Yoko is lying.
auntiesis Jun 07, 2009	I needed paper and pen to get this one. Not too easy, but with some perseverence I got it.
UptheHill Jun 07, 2009	Fun but too easy!!
blueyoshi99 Jun 08, 2009	much too easy
FatHead Jun 08, 2009	Ha, you can't Beat(le) it!
cacepc Jun 09, 2009	A very good teaser. It was hard for me. Keep up the good work.
gmenrule1024 Jan 16, 2010	Beatles fan, Eh?
BrainBoggler Dec 13, 2010	easy.........
Babe Jun 07, 2012	I do not like these kinds of teasers even though I got the answer correct. They just are not my thing. Sorry. Who is baffled and why can't we ever see what he has said??
incredibotsmast Jun 07, 2012	Why dont Yoko just tell the judge who the winner is?
puzzleman Jun 07, 2012	John, Paul, George, Ringo... Aren't those the BEATLES!?
Gwendalla Jun 07, 2012	Puzzleman, I was thinking the same thing... Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Plus, I got it!!!
iggy39 Jun 07, 2012	I guess it wouldn't be much fun if Yoko told who won now would it? I never get these kinds. I thought Yoko was lying.
eamon Jun 08, 2012	So - the Walrus WAS Paul after all.
Greatslyfer Jul 07, 2012	Don't know if anyone else took a easier and lucky (IMO) route to finding who's lying. This method is does not rely entirely on logic, but rather intuition. As soon as George says that he won and was about to receive the award, Yoko says that one of them is lying. So I just started from the assumption that George was lying and... bingo ;P.