Background

I’ve been fascinated with the Three-Hat Problem since I read about it in the New York Times about 10 years ago.

Turns out, the Peter Winlker quoted in the article was my college roommate. I’d solved the 3-hat problem right away, but late that night I emailed Peter asking for advice about solving the 7-hat problem. His response was technical, and 2-pages long.

I was able to follow and use the solution he gave me, but it took me two weeks of sleeping on the problem every night before I felt I really understood it, and was ready to attempt giving my college-student daughters a non-technical explanation.