Hats

I met a person who told me this riddle: A psycho is catching people, putting them in a row, so that everyone sees the back belonging to the person before him. He puts black or white hats on their heads. He comes to them from behind and asks everyone, what is their hat's coulour. If they get it right- they live. If they get it wrong-they die.

They cannot communicate in any way, but: they hear each other's replies. How can more than half of them be saved?

I did not manage to solve this, and I probably won't see the person who gave me that riddle in my life again. Can you help?

Depending on the others always to hear the hat color alternates each next asked.

And?

what

they simply alternate from last person's response 

You mean they can guess the psycho's key to hats deployment?

what does "alternate" mean?

al·ter·nate (ôl′tər-nāt′, ăl′-)
v. al·ter·nat·ed, al·ter·nat·ing, al·ter·nates
v.intr.
1.
a. To occur in a successive manner: day alternating with night.
b. To act or proceed by turns: The students alternated at the computer.
2. To pass back and forth from one state, action, or place to another: alternated between happiness and depression.
3. Electricity To reverse direction at regular intervals in a circuit.
v.tr.
1. To do or execute by turns.

alternating, black, white, black, white

in lament terms, yes

hey cooky 

Better use language forums and dictionaries, like wordreference for example.

But hats don't alternate there. You have to be 100% sure of saving majority of those people.

@Cmyy3b4 

That would work I guess...

Either you know the riddle, or you're very smart.

mine was a short of his answer

Well, everyone knew from the beginning that they have to be saying the next' colour, but not all knew in which order.

lolz

I say to hell with that reaper 

oi 

He gave me one riddle more, which I worked out by myself. Want to know it?

lol nah

hehe, I like being mean sometimes so here it is: You are walking on a road and you can either turn right or left. One road leads to luck, the other-to misery. Two twin brothers are there, and and they know which road leads where. One always lies, the other one always says the truth. You have one question, what will you ask?

If each person keeps a tally of the number of colours stated and opts for the smallest tally so far...that person's chance will then be over 50 % to be spared...