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Can you solve the riddle of Pandora’s box? - Alex Rosenthal

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595 Questions Answered

TEDEd Animation

Let’s Begin…

Pandora is having a decisively bad day. She didn’t set out to open the box; if anything she’d resisted with every ounce of her will. But her curiosity got the better of her, and a cavalcade of evils of every shape and size spilled out. Pandora knows her only chance to fix this is to capture Hope before the imps all escape her home. Can you figure out which one is Hope? Alex Rosenthal shows how.

Additional Resources for you to Explore

This riddle was adapted from the original Cheryl's birthday problem written by Dr. Joseph Yeo Boon Wooi and posed as part of the Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad in 2015. For other logic puzzles, check out TED-Ed videos on the submarine riddle, the locker riddle, or the frog riddle.

Logic puzzles are a way of explaining complicated theorems through fictional scenarios. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains logic puzzles here, and Mathigon has an article detailing their history here.

The Cheryl's birthday problem presented in the video is a knowledge puzzle, or a type of logic puzzle which focuses on the knowledge or ignorance of individuals involved in the scenario. These problems rely on deductive reasoning and common knowledge for their solutions

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Meet The Creators

Educator
Alex Rosenthal
Director
Igor Coric, Artrake Studio
Narrator
Addison Anderson
Art Director
Milena Čogurić
Composer
Cem Misirlioglu
Sound Designer
Cem Misirlioglu
Director of Production
Gerta Xhelo
Produced by
Sazia Afrin
Editorial Director
Alex Rosenthal

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