Notes: This story offers many opportunities for the reader to pause and allow listeners to ponder the events of the story as they unfold. In individual writing, small group, or whole class discussions, listeners can be asked to offer explanations for the events, in effect predicting what will happen next, which is to say, predicting how the text will explain the events. The goal is NOT that listeners produce the "correct" answer/outcome/'product,' but rather that they engage in the processes of listening critically, thinking, writing, and speaking in connection with a text that they will (hopefully) find interesting and intriguing.
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Very long ago, in the Eastern city of Baghdad, there lived an old man named Ali Baba.
Every day Ali Baba would go to the bazaar to buy or sell things. This is a story which is partly about Ali Baba and partly also about a cave, a strange cave whose secret and wonder exist to this day. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
One day in the Baghdad bazaar, a thief grabbed a purse from Ali Baba, who right away started to run after him. The thief fled into a nearby cave whose entryway forked into two dark, winding passages, one off to the left, the other off to the right. Ali Baba, who was following, did not see which passage the thief ran into, though he did see him enter the main entrance. So Ali Baba had to choose which way to go,
QUESTION (Guessing, for fun): Which way did Ali Baba go, left or right?
and he decided to go to the left. The left-hand passage ended after a while in a dead end. Ali Baba searched all the way from the fork at the beginning to the dead end, but he did not find the thief.
QUESTION: Why do you think Ali Baba did not find the thief in the left-hand passage of the cave?
Ali Baba said to himself that the thief must have been in the other passage. So he searched the right-hand passage, which also came to a dead end. But again he did not find the thief,
QUESTION: What is going on? How could the thief not be in either the left- or the right-hand passages of the cave?
figuring that the thief probably left from the right-hand passage while he was busy searching the left. "This cave is pretty strange," said Ali Baba to himself. "Where has my thief gone?"
The following day another thief grabbed Ali Baba's basket and fled, as the first thief had fled into the strange cave the day before. Once again Ali Baba pursued him, and again did not see which way the thief went. This time, however, Ali Baba decided to search to the right. He went all the way to the end of the right-hand passage, but did not find the thief. He said to himself that, like the first thief, the second thief had also been lucky in taking the passage Ali Baba did not choose to search first. This had undoubtedly let the thief leave again and to blend quietly into the crowded bazaar.
QUESTION: Was this thief merely "lucky," or is there something else going on? If so, what might it be?
Days went by, and every day brought its thief. Ali Baba always ran after the thief, but never caught any of them. On the 40th day, a 40th thief grabbed Ali Baba's turban - boy, he's down to his turban - and fled, as 39 thieves had done before him, into the strange cave. Ali Baba yet again did not see which way the thief went. This time Ali Baba decided to search the left-hand passage; but, again, he did not find the thief at the end of the passage. Ali Baba was very puzzled. He could have said to himself, as he had done before, that the 40th thief had been as lucky as each of the other 39 thieves. But this explanation was so far-fetched that even Ali Baba did not believe it. The luck of the 40 thieves was just too good to be a matter of chance. There was only one chance in a million million that all of the 40 would escape.
QUESTION (Brief discussion): What is "chance" / probability? (Highly unlikely vs. Impossible)
(Now, pausing for a second, we know that there's a 50-50 chance, given that the two tunnels dead-end, and Ali Baba has to choose one. Every time he chooses he's got a 50-50 chance. 40 days, 40 thieves, that's 2^40, which is 1.1 times 10^12, which is in fact 1.1 million million. So that would be the chance, if the cave is as Ali Baba suspects or believes at this point, that in 40 tries he could never once catch the thief. That's very unlucky.)
So Ali Baba said to himself that there must be another, more likely explanation. He began to suspect that the strange cave guarded a secret. And Ali Baba set out to discover the secret of the strange cave.
QUESTION (Group brainstorm): What kinds of "secret[s]" might the cave hold that would explain the disappearance of each of the 40 thieves?
He decided to hide under some sacks at the end of the right-hand passage. After a very uncomfortable wait, he saw a thief arrive. Sensing he was pursued by his victim, the thief whispered the magic words "Open Sesame." Ali Baba was amazed to see the wall of the cave slide open. The thief ran through the opening, then the wall slid closed again. The pursuer arrived and was all upset to find only Ali Baba hiding under the sacks at the dead end of the passage. The thief had escaped. But Ali Baba was happy, for he was finding out the secret of the strange cave.
QUESTION: How does the "wall of the cave slid[ing] open" allow the thieves to escape from their pursuers?
Ali Baba experimented himself with the magic words. He discovered to his amazement that, when the wall slid open, the right-hand passage was connected with the left-hand passage. Now Ali Baba knew how all of the 40 thieves had escaped from him.
QUESTION (Discussion/demonstration, for clarity): How exactly did the thieves escape?
The very next day a thief was caught. Ali Baba recorded this story and his discovery in a lovely illuminated manuscript. He did not write down the new magic words, but included some subtle clues about them. Ali Baba's lovely illuminated manuscript arrived in Italy in the Middle Ages, and today it's in the United States, somewhere near Boston.
There it recently acquired the full attention of several curious researchers. Through decryption of the subtle clues, these researchers rediscovered the magic words. After several archeological excavations in the ruins of the old Baghdad bazaar, the strange cave was relocated. It was not a myth after all. And despite the centuries, the magic words still worked. All agog, the curious researchers went through the end wall between the two passages.
The television networks were quickly made aware of the unusual events taking place in Baghdad, and a big American network even got an exclusive on the story. One of the researchers, whom we'll call Mick Ali, perhaps a descendant of Ali Baba, wanted to demonstrate that he knew the secret, but he did not want to reveal the secret.
QUESTION (Group brainstorm -- this is hard!): How might Mick Ali demonstrate (prove?) to the TV network that he knows the secret of the cave, without letting them find out the secret?
Here's what he did:
First, a television crew filmed a detailed tour of the cave with the two dead-end passages, just like Ali Baba had found all those centuries ago. Then everyone left the cave. Mick Ali went back in alone and went down one of the passages. Then the reporter, accompanied by the camera, went inside only as far as the fork, where he flipped a coin to choose between right and left. If the coin came up heads, he would tell Mick to come out on the right. If the coin came up tails, he would tell Mick to come out on the left. It was heads. So the reporter called out loud, "Mick, come out on the right." And Mick did just that.
In memory of the 40 thieves, this demonstration scene was played 40 times. Each of the times, everybody went back out of the cave, and Mick entered alone, all of the way down one of the passages, which he chose first. Then the reporter and the camera went as far as the fork, where a coin was tossed, giving Mick the order which cave to come out of. Mick succeeded all 40 times. Anybody who did not know the secret of the cave would have been exposed on the first failure. Each new test divided by two the chances of success for someone without the secret. On the other hand, the secret allowed Mick to come out each time through the required tunnel.
QUESTION (Discussion/demonstration, for clarity): How exactly did Mick Ali demonstrate to the TV network that he knows the secret of the cave without revealing the secret to them?
Employed by another television network, a jealous reporter wanted to also film a story about the strange cave. But Mick, honoring his nondisclosure and his exclusivity, refused to participate because he had given exclusive rights to the story to the first network. But Mick mischievously suggested to the jealous reporter that the story could be filmed without possessing the secret. The jealous reporter thought about that for a minute and then smiled to himself. He said, "I even know a stage actor who looks like you and who could be mistaken for you."
And the second story was filmed. In the course of the filming, half of the scenes were spoiled because Mick's double did not know the magic words and so could not get from one passage to the other as required to succeed every time. So the jealous reporter simply edited the tape and only kept the successful scenes until he had 40 of those.
QUESTION: In what ways might the jealous reporter's tape be the same as the original tape (with Mick Ali who actually knows the secret)? In what ways might the jealous reporter's tape be different?
The two stories were aired at the same hour on the same evening by the two competing American networks. And the matter went to court because it was believed that somehow this exclusivity was broken.
Both videotapes that were aired at the same time on the same night were placed into evidence, but the judges and the experts could not tell the tapes apart. Which tape was simulated? Which tape was genuine? The tapes alone were not enough to judge by. The simulation [fake] surely contained no knowledge of the secret because no knowledge of the secret was involved in creating the simulation, so it couldn't have any knowledge of the secret. But the simulation and the genuine tape were indistinguishable from one another. Thus the genuine tape also did not convey any knowledge of the secret. [That was the whole point of Mick Ali's demonstration: To show that he knew the secret WITHOUT revealing the secret.]
The reporter who had gotten the exclusive story had been convinced at the time that Mick Ali knew the secret, and he was still convinced. But the reporter, despite all of his efforts in court, was unable to pass his conviction on to the judges. Or onto the television audience, either, because of course now he had a tape that was judged to be a fraud, or might be, because the other network had aired the same thing, apparently showing exactly the same miracle of this Ali Baba's Cave. So Mick Ali had achieved his real objective. He wanted in fact to show that it is possible to convince without revealing, and so without unveiling his secret.
And that's the story of Ali Baba's Cave.
FINAL QUESTION: Is this a convincing / satisfying ending? Could it be that there really is no way to tell the two tapes apart? If you think that this is a reasonable ending, explain exactly why it is impossible to tell the two tapes apart. If you think this ending is not acceptable, offer at least one way that the tapes could be distinguished from each other, giving detailed evidence to support your claim.
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