Look it up on the web:

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~mathijs/brainte..._solution.html

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"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Joe" wrote in message
oups.com...
Once upon a time, a gang of five pirates sailed the ocean. They were
numbered from 1 to 5, according to their rank. They all had four
important qualities:

They were very greedy
Bloodthirsty
Extremely smart (at least for a pirate)
They liked life
One day they captured the treasure of their life: a big bag with 1000
diamonds. All diamonds were exactly the same.

The moment they got this treasure, they also got a problem: how to
divide it? They came up with the following procedu

Starting with pirate #5, they each made a proposal for the division of
the diamonds.
After each proposal all the pirates voted.
If the majority of the pirates accepted the proposal, they divided the
diamonds as proposed.
If the proposal was not accepted, the proposing pirate was thrown of
the ship (as the lunch of the local shark family) and the next pirate
could make his proposal.

What was the proposal of pirate #5?