History of the Muddy Children Puzzle
For historians of logic and puzzle enthusiasts, this paper clarifies the puzzle's origins and introduces a new variant, but the contribution is primarily historical and incremental.
The paper traces the historical origins of the Muddy Children Puzzle across two centuries of literature and presents a novel self-referential hats puzzle. It clarifies the puzzle's unclear provenance and its influence on epistemic logic.
The Muddy Children Puzzle is a puzzle about knowledge and ignorance that has been inspiring for the development of epistemic logic. Who came up with it first? This is unclear. We trace the origin of the Muddy Children Puzzle through logical and literary publications over the past two centuries. The puzzle inspired a numerous variations such as involving numbers or coloured hats. We also present a novel hats puzzle involving self-reference.