{"slug": "history-of-the-muddy-children-puzzle", "title": "History of the Muddy Children Puzzle", "summary": "Researchers trace the origin of the Muddy Children Puzzle through logical and literary publications over the past two centuries, finding its first appearance unclear. The puzzle, which has inspired variations involving numbers or colored hats, also led to a novel hats puzzle involving self-reference.", "body_md": "# Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence\n\n[Submitted on 8 Jun 2026]\n\n# Title:History of the Muddy Children Puzzle\n\n[View PDF](/pdf/2606.13703)\n\n[HTML (experimental)](https://arxiv.org/html/2606.13703v1)\n\nAbstract: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.\n\n## Submission history\n\nFrom: Hans van Ditmarsch [[view email](/show-email/95d16bbf/2606.13703)]\n\n**[v1]** Mon, 8 Jun 2026 07:45:05 UTC (2,701 KB)\n\n### Current browse context:\n\ncs.AI\n\n### References & Citations\n\nLoading...\n\n# Bibliographic and Citation Tools\n\nBibliographic Explorer\n\n*(*[What is the Explorer?](https://info.arxiv.org/labs/showcase.html#arxiv-bibliographic-explorer))\nConnected Papers\n\n*(*[What is Connected Papers?](https://www.connectedpapers.com/about))\nLitmaps\n\n*(*[What is Litmaps?](https://www.litmaps.co/))\nscite Smart Citations\n\n*(*[What are Smart Citations?](https://www.scite.ai/))# Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article\n\nalphaXiv\n\n*(*[What is alphaXiv?](https://alphaxiv.org/))\nCatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers\n\n*(*[What is CatalyzeX?](https://www.catalyzex.com))\nDagsHub\n\n*(*[What is DagsHub?](https://dagshub.com/))\nGotit.pub\n\n*(*[What is GotitPub?](http://gotit.pub/faq))\nHugging Face\n\n*(*[What is Huggingface?](https://huggingface.co/huggingface))\nScienceCast\n\n*(*[What is ScienceCast?](https://sciencecast.org/welcome))# Demos\n\n# Recommenders and Search Tools\n\nInfluence Flower\n\n*(*[What are Influence Flowers?](https://influencemap.cmlab.dev/))\nCORE Recommender\n\n*(*[What is CORE?](https://core.ac.uk/services/recommender))# arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators\n\narXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.\n\nBoth individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.\n\nHave an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? [ Learn more about arXivLabs](https://info.arxiv.org/labs/index.html).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/history-of-the-muddy-children-puzzle", "canonical_source": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.13703", "published_at": "2026-06-15 04:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-15 04:14:35.658812+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Hans van Ditmarsch"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/history-of-the-muddy-children-puzzle", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/history-of-the-muddy-children-puzzle.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/history-of-the-muddy-children-puzzle.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/history-of-the-muddy-children-puzzle.jsonld"}}