In this version, the answerer tells the questioners at the start of the game whether the subject belongs to the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdom.
A version of twenty questions called yes and no is played as a parlor game by characters in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
The game suggests that the information (as measured by Shannon's entropy statistic) required to identify an arbitrary object is at most 20 bits.
The process is analogous to a binary search algorithm in computer science or successive-approximation ADC in analog-to-digital signal conversion.
In 1901 Charles Sanders Peirce discussed factors in the economy of research that govern the selection of a hypothesis for trial: (1) cheapness, (2) intrinsic value (instinctive naturalness and reasoned likelihood), and (3) relation (caution, breadth, and incomplexity) to other projects (other hypotheses and inquiries).
Wheeler's theory was that, in an analogous manner, consciousness may play some role in bringing the universe into existence.
[5] As a television series, Twenty Questions debuted as a local show in New York on WOR-TV Channel 9 on November 2, 1949.
Beginning on November 26, the series went nationwide on NBC until December 24, after which it remained dormant until March 17, 1950, when it was picked up by ABC until June 29, 1951.
[citation needed] Some of the early TV episodes were simulcast on WOR-TV, WNBT-TV and Mutual radio.
In Hungary, the game is known as Barkochba, named after Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the second-century Jewish uprising against the Romans.
It proved enormously popular, travelling the length and breadth of Ireland, hosted in local clubs and community halls.
Show was cancelled due to scandal, when it turned out that mathematicians used binary search algorithm to answer the questions,[8] using to it Wielka Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN.
On radio, the subject to be guessed was revealed to the audience by a "mystery voice" (originally Norman Hackforth from 1947 to 1962; he was later a regular panelist).
The panel comprised Richard Dimbleby, Jack Train, Anona Winn and Joy Adamson, in later years comedian Peter Glaze also.
A later presenter, Gilbert Harding, was ousted in 1960 by producer Ian Messiter when, after having drunk a triple gin-and-tonic he had originally offered to Messiter, proceeded to completely ruin the night's game – he insulted two panelists, failed to recognise a correct identification after seven questions (after revealing the answer upon the 20th question, he yelled at the panel and audience), and ended the show three minutes early by saying "I'm fed up with this idiotic game ...
The BBC World Service also broadcast a version called Animal, Vegetable and Mineral, chaired by Terry Wogan with a panel including Rachael Heyhoe Flint and Michael Flanders.
[citation needed] In the movie The 20 Questions Murder Mystery (1950) then members of the team, including Richard Dimbleby and Norman Hackforth, appear.
Together with two newspaper reporters, they work to find the identity of a serial killer who sends in questions for the panel that prefigure his next victim.