Brain Teasers
The King's Son
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
The king dies and two men both claim to be his long-lost son. One of the king's advisors proposes a test to determine the identity of the true heir. One claimant agrees to the test; the other refuses. The one who agreed is sent packing; the one who refused is identified as the rightful heir. How come?
Answer
The proposed test was a blood test. Knowing that blood typing isn't very accurate, the impostor felt it was worth trying to get away with it. But the true heir was a hemophiliac and couldn't give blood for the test.Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
NIce one. I did like that If there's one bad hemophilia teaser, I haven't heard it!
Since when is 'blood typing' not very accurate???
i heard this once..it was in the game mindtrap
good one
good one
it wasn't explained well in the solution, but blood typing is not an accurate way to determine paternity. think of how many people have the same blood type as you; by this test, any one of them could potentially be your father's child!
..................eh?
Aug 23, 2002
Another solution would be that it was a DNA test and the rightful heir agreed while the imposter, knowing how accurate DNA testing is, refused the test.
Aug 23, 2002
But I guess that would be changing the problem.
Nice one. I was stumped.
whats a hemophiliac? someone who cant donate blood or something??
I just checked dictionary.com, and just because the hemophiliac refused to take the test, doesn't necessarily mean he's the real heir. His blood just doesn't clot. Even if he wasn't the heir, he'd still refuse.
I wouldn't agree that blood testing isn't so accurate..Maybe in middle age, but now..
Great teaser, but what's a hemophiliac?
The agreer could be confident,and the other person could've gotten instructions not to take the teat.
A hemophiliac is a diease where your blood dosen't clot, meaning you can't stop bleeding, despite the size of the cut, it can also happen like that with internal bleeind and bruises. I feel bad for people who are hemophiliac.
The teaser was.... ehhh... ok I guess.
The teaser was.... ehhh... ok I guess.
I think this works better without the haemophilia. If the blood test is INaccurate, the imposter would be willing to give it a go. However, the true heir would insist on a more accurate (DNA) test.
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