New Competition Idea...

[lo_res_man]

he could ask: "are you a martian?"
if the critter does a differant gesture he now he knows that belly rub means no and if he does belly rub,  belly rub  means yes

oh, and ithink the word is "gesture", not "jest".  To me, jest means, joke, prank, trick monkeyshines

[Ginny]

Yeah, correct:). He could ask any question to which he knew the answer would be yes.
Oh, yeah, gesture was what I meant.

I have to post this riddle my friend asked me today. It took me the whole hebrew lesson to figure out. But I'm kinda slow;)

A devil wants to get back to his home, hell. He needs to pass a bridge gaurded by a man who will not let him pass. The man is smoking a cigarette, and looks pretty annoyed.
How can he get to hell if the guard won't let him pass?

[Tuomas]

well, he should ask the guy for a smoke, and then jump down the bridge... Smoking's a sin right? so he'd go straight to hell... Or he could make the guard kill him. Every murdered person also goes to hell, or so I have read... Yet he could also suggest the guard something about going to hell and such...

[Eggie]

If attaching a squirrel to a pice of string to make a kite is illogical then I don't wanna be logical!

[esper]

Every murdered person goes to... what now???

Anyway, here's one that only has one answer. It isn't what the originator had in mind, but it's the kind that everyone else has been telling, and I like it alot! Try to guess where I got it (HINT: look at my avatar!!!)

A man stands in a room, from which there is no entrance or exit but two guarded doors. Each door is identical, and is guarded by an identical black-clad knight.

A voice rumbles through the room:

"Brave traveller, this is but the first step of your journey. To pass, you must successfully choose the door which leads to freedom. If you choose incorrectly, the path you will find yourself on will lead to eternal destruction. Once you have chosen, there is no going back.

"One of the guards is a liar. The other one can do naught but tell the truth. You will be allowed only one question, to only one of them." The voice then fades.

So then, we have our intrepid adventurer having to make a choice between life and death, and can ask only one question to one of the guards, one of which only ever tells the truth, one of which only ever lies. He does not know which one is which, and which one tells the truth and which one lies is NOT linked to the door they are guarding. Therefore, it doesn't matter which of the two he asks the question to.

What question should he ask?

[Nikolas]

Spoiler

He would ask one of the two knights the following question: "What would the other knight tell me if I was to ask him which is the door of truth". The truthfull guard will have to say the truth: That the other guard will lie. So in this case the good doctor, oopss character should choose the other door. If he happens to ask the liar the liar will tell a lie, as to what the other guard would say (which is the truth), and thus again he should choose the other door.

[close]

It's a well known puzzle/riddle/enigma...

[esper]

Ah, yes, but one that I like.

And one I heard originally on a Dr. Who episode... One during the time of the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker! He was the best! Next to Jon Pertwee, none of the other Doctors have even been worthwhile!

I HAVE A NEW IDEA FOR THIS COMPETITION, should we choose to go with it...

The giver of the problem should also present some kind of picture of the room. I think I saw this once in the other comp they were talking about with SSH... I think it was DragonRose who had posted a pic of a room and gave the problem from there. Maybe we could get pictures off the internet of people who seem to be in a bit of dire straits, and then ask how they could get out of the problem... Per Exemplis:

http://stellargraffiti.com/My%20Pictures/Gv%20Scolding.jpg

This bitch won't shut up. She has her sights trained on the little boy, and the little girl is not planning a getaway anytime soon. Using only objects presented in the picture, how can the boy lead the unassuming little girl to freedom from the evil mother?

(sorry for the link, but the pic is very large)