Test Your Telepathic Skills

by Uri Feige

The Amazing Tachman Family are world famous for their

astonishing feats involving telepathy. They have performed in
front of large crowds. But can they exhibit their skills in the
carefully controlled environment of the laboratories of FEXI (the
Foolproof Experiments Institute )? Mr. Tachman agreed that his
three children will participate in a scientific experiment on
telepathy. However, he imposed the condition that any
experiment that they take part in should only prove that
telepathy exists, without revealing which of the three children is
the one who has telepathic skills (this was considered a
professional secret).

The chief mathematician in FEXI proposed the following

experiment. It is performed with a deck of six cards. One card
has the symbol X on it, two cards have the symbol Y , and three
cards have the symbol Z . The three children are placed in
different rooms. Each child is given one of the cards with the
symbol Z on it. The other three cards are shuffled and then each
child gets one of them (face down). Each child inspects this
second card that he receives, and can either return it, or return
the Z card (face down). The three cards that are returned are
shuffled, and then inspected. If they contain all three symbols, X ,
Y , and Z , then the children win. Otherwise, they fail.

The mathematician argued that if the children have no telepathic

skills, they win with probability at most 2/3 . A child that receives
X must return X (otherwise, no X is returned). A child that
receives Y has two possible strategies: either to return Y or to
return Z . Since each child must base his decision of which card
to return only on the card that he receives (he sees no other
card), then he must associate himself with exactly one of the two
strategies. Since there are three children and only two possible
strategies, at least two children share the same strategy. With
probability 1/3, both these children will receive a Y card. If this
event happens, they both return the same type of card, causing
failure.

The mathematician also argued that if at least one child is

telepathic, the children need never fail. The telepathic child need
not base his strategy only on the card that it sees, but can base it
also on the cards that the other children see and return. Using
this information, and assuming that each of the other children
employs a different strategy, it is always possible to ensure that
three different symbols will be returned (by a simple case
analysis). Moreover, since the cards are shuffled both before they
are dealt, and after they are returned, symmetry arguments
show that there is no way of telling who the telepathic child is.

Mr. Tachman praised the mathematician on the wise design, and

agreed that his family take part in the experiment. The staff at
FEXI was concerned that even without telepathy, the children
have probability greater than 1/2 of success. However, the
mathematician assured them that the experiment can be
repeated in order to build up the confidence in the results. Even
if the children succeed in the first experiment, there still is
probability 1/3 of failing in the next experiment. If the
experiment is repeated 100 times, then the probability of success
in all experiments is at most (2/3)^{100} , which is astronomically
small. The mathematician was willing to stake his job on his
conviction that an event of such low probability will not happen.

For the experiment, FEXI employees prepared hundreds of decks,

each containing six cards, as instructed by the mathematician.
With the first two deck of cards, the children won, and Mr.
Tachman was very pleased. On the third deck, they failed, but
Mr. Tachman said that this is due to excitement and pressure.
After ten decks were played the children won seven times, and
failed on three. Mr. Tachman commented that the children are
doing very well. The mathematician disagreed, and said that
seven out of ten for this experiment is what one would expect to
get by chance. Mr. Tachman said that not being a mathematician,
he is unable to comment on the mathematics of the experiment.
However, knowing the pressure his children are under, 30%-40%
failure rate is to be expected. The experiments were stopped. The
mathematician said that under current circumstances, a new
experiment needs to be designed. This might take a few days. Mr.
Tachman got angry, and said that FEXI are sore loosers, and that
he only agreed to come for one day. The head of the lab anxiously
called everyone to calm down.

After a few minutes, Mr. Tachman proposed the following

modified experiment. Instead of using one deck of cards as was
done in each execution of the original experiment, use three: a
red deck, a blue deck, and a yellow deck. The original experiment
will be executed three times in parallel. As in the original
experiment, each child receives a red Z card. The other three red
cards are shuffled, and each child gets one more red card at
random. Then the same procedure is repeated with the blue deck
and the yellow deck. Each child can inspect the six cards that it
receives, and return one card of each color. The three cards of
each color that are returned will be shuffled and inspected. If
there are X , Y and Z cards of every color, the children win.
Otherwise, they loose. Mr. Tachman explained that in the
extended experiment, the children must win with the red deck,
and also with the blue deck, and also with the yellow deck. Since
each deck is shuffled independently, then the probability of
winning simultaneously with all three decks is at most (2/3)^3 <
0.3 , if no telepathy is involved. He was sure that his children
would do much better then that.

The first time the extended experiment was executed, the

children won with the red deck, but failed with the blue deck and
with the yellow deck. Hence the children failed in the extended
experiment. Mr. Tachman was annoyed. The second time the
extended experiment was executed, the children won with the
red deck and with the yellow deck, but failed with the blue deck.
Hence despite the improvement, the children still failed in the
extended experiment. Mr. Tachman was furious. He said that his
children obviously do not understand what they need to do, and
called out a five minute break. In this break he gathered up the
children, and gave them instructions (in Hebrew). The children
returned to their rooms. The next time the extended experiment
was executed, the children failed with all three decks. The
mathematician asked Mr. Tachman if he wants another break,
but Mr. Tachman expressed complete confidence in his children.
And for good reasons. The extended experiment was repeated a
hundred times. To everyone's amazement (except for Mr.
Tachman), the children won 65 times. The mathematician
calculated that the probability of having 65 successes out of a
hundred, when the probability of an individual success is 0.3, is
bellow one in a million. The Tachman family were the clear
winners of the day.

A report on this experiment was prepared by the lab. However,

the report was never published, and the mathematician was
fired. Can you see why?

Any relation between the first name of the author and the first
name of Uri Geller is a coincidence.

Hint

Solution

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