Knights, spies, games and ballot sequences (Q710599)

A solution to the Knights and Spies Problem is presented. In a room there are \(n\) people, each labeled with a unique number between 1 and \(n\). A person may either be a knight or a spy. Knights always tell the truth, while spies may lie or tell the truth as they see fit. Each person in the room knows the identity of everyone else. Apart from this, all that is known is that strictly more knights than spies are present. Asking only questions of the form ``person \(i\), what is the identity of person \(j\)?'', what is the least number of questions that will guarantee to find the true identities of all \(n\) people? A questioning strategy is presented that uses slightly less than \(3n/2\) questions, and it is shown that it is optimal by solving a related two-player game. The performance of this strategy is analysed using methods from the famous ballot-counting problem.