有趣的逻辑谜题

Original Question:

The police have three suspects for the murder of Mr. Cooper: Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, and Mr.Williams. Smith, Jones, and Williams each declare that they did not kill Cooper. Smith also states that Cooper was a friend of Jones and that Williams disliked him. Jones also states that he did not know Cooper and that he was out of town the day Cooper was killed. Williams also states that he 24 1 / The Foundations: Logic and Proofs saw both Smith and Jones with Cooper the day of the killing and that either Smith or Jones must have killed him.Can you determine who the murderer was if
a) one of the three men is guilty, the two innocent men are telling the truth, but the statements of the guilty man may or may not be true?
b) innocent men do not lie?

Answer:

a) We look at the three possibilities of who the innocent men might be. If Smith and Jones are innocent (and therefore telling the truth), then we get an immediate contradiction, since Smith said that Jones was a friend of Cooper, but Jones said that he did not even know Cooper. If Jones and Williams are the innocent truth-tellers, then we again get a contradiction, since Jones says that he did not know Cooper and was out of town, but Williams says he saw Jones with Cooper (presumably in town, and presumably if we was with him, then he knew him). Therefore it must be the case that Smith and Williams are telling the truth. Their statements do not contradict each other. Based on Williams’ statement, we know that Jones is lying,since he said that he did not know Cooper when in fact he was with him. Therefore Jones is the murderer.

b) This is just like part (a), except that we are not told ahead of time that one of the men is guilty. Can none of them be guilty? If so, then they are all telling the truth, but this is impossible, because as we just saw, some of the statements are contradictory. Can more than one of them be guilty? If, for example, they are all guilty, then their statements give us no information. So that is certainly possible.

题目翻译

对于Cooper先生的谋杀案，警察有三个怀疑对象：Smith先生、Jones先生和Williams先生。他们三人声称没有杀害Cooper。Smith还称Cooper是Jones的朋友并且Williams不喜欢Cooper。Jones也声称他不认识Cooper并且Cooper被害的当天他不在镇上。Williams也声称他在案发当天看见Smith和Jones与Cooper在一起，因此不是Smith就是Jones是凶手。在下列情况下，你能判断谁是凶手吗？
a) 三人中有一人是凶手，清白的那两个人说的是真话，但凶手说的话不一定为真。
b)清白者没有撒谎。