Hi Melody
The last sentence is a question implying a “fact” not otherwise in evidence. The phrasing implies that there should be explicit evidence, but there is not.
We did have to make some assuptions. Like that Matt can see the house number of the house across the street and that if two children have the same year age that there is not an older one.
The assumption that “. . . that Matt can see the house number . . .” may be valid, but is irrelevant because we do not have, and should not need, that information.
. . . if two children have the same year age that there is not an older one.
This is not a valid assumption because many families have twins. The three children solution for this very question demonstrates younger twins, and in fact there is an older one, because the simultaneous birth of twins is an extremely unlikely event. I.E an unreasonable assumption.
These are logic questions; specifically implication logic questions that should resolve to a point solution without ambiguity. That is, if it is properly written, the solution should not require any assumptions, conjectures, speculation, or guessing to determine a solution, or set of solutions. Note that in logic, “implication” is not the same as “assumption.”
And that Matt is able to deal with all this logic while drinking with his mate.
Downing a few good belts may, in fact, help with the nauseating ambiguities by implying (making an assumption of) a “fact” contained only in the explicit question portion at the end of the statements.
But most of these are reasonable assumption for a puzzle like this one.
A reasonable assumption is to have a logic puzzle that doesn’t need assumptions. If this was the case then it would be an OK puzzle.
This puzzle is not bad. I am saying, based on the statements, there are several solutions. The three children solution is only one.
+1036 