Are You Smarter than 100 Prisoners? This Riddle Stumped Me Until I Simulated It Spoiler Alert: This Post Has Nothing to Do With AI I took a day off to run some errands and get caught up on life. Later in the evening, I came across an interesting riddle video called the 100 prisoners riddle on Veritasium . I could not believe what Derek Muller was saying. Nor did I understand how the proposed strategy worked. For a minute I thought the video may have been recorded for April Fools' Day. When all else fails, we trust our Monte Carlo simulations. The 100 prisoners problem is a fascinating probability puzzle where 100 prisoners must each find their own number in one of 100 drawers to survive. Each prisoner can open only 50 drawers, and they cannot communicate once the search begins. If all prisoners find their respective numbered boxes they will all be pardoned. Even if one person could not get his/her number they will all be executed. At first glance, the odds seem hopelessly low, wi...
