TITLE: Symmetric strategy for 100 prisoners and a light bulb problem
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: Remark: The problem is the prisoners and lightbulb problem, but without the usual probabilistic frame (the ogre chooses as he pleases). Also, the strategy is symmetric and the dwarves don't have a sense of time. The link above does not give a solution for these hypothesis.
In more detail, the problem goes as follows: $100$ immortal dwarves are captured by an immortal ogre in order for him to play a game. The dwarves are in separate cells and never communicate, and each day the ogre chooses arbitrarily one dwarf and brings him to a room with a lightbulb which is either on or off. The dwarf can leave it as it is or switch it.  On the first day, the dwarve decide on a strategy, and the lightbulb is off.
The dwarves are able to go out if one day one of them can say that all $100$ dwarves have been taken to the lightbulb (and be right about it).

Two important hypothesis:

the choice of the ogre is arbitrary (not random, arbitrary), but the game isn't unfair so he promises that he plans to take each dwarf an infinite number of times to the lightbulb room,
the dwarves have no sense of time (so in particular they cannot know how many dwarves went to the room before them, or if the ogre took them to the room several times in a row). Equivalently, we could say the ogre takes a dwarf to the room whenever he wants.


$ $
Question: before the game, all $100$ dwarves meet one (last?) time to decide on a strategy. 

A. Can they find  a winning strategy?
B. [Contains hint for 1...] Can they find a winning symmetric strategy (i.e. each dwarf has the same action policy) ?


I don't have an answer for B. I am putting this question here since I think some (very simple) combinatorics may be needed to find a proof for a symmetric strategy.
Here is my answer for A: one of the dwarf is chosen as a 'leader': only him can switch on the light, and only him can speak to the ogre. So each time he switches it on (or not if it is already) and count the number of times he switched it on. All $99$ other dwarves can only switch the light off once if they find it on (and then do nothing more). Once the leader has switched the light on $100$ times (it is off at the beginning), he tells the ogre that all dwarves have seen the lightbulb. Using the fact that after any number of days, the ogre will still bring each dwarf again in the room, it is easy to show that the dwarves will win.

REPLY [2 votes]: I believe there is no symmetric strategy for the prisoners. This problem appeared in Mathematical Puzzles, a Connoisseur's Collection by Peter Winkler. In the solution provided, he went above and beyond and gave a complete characterization of all successful strategies. Here is the exact excerpt from the book, which Winkler warns is only "sketchy." 

Let us focus on one prisoner, say Alice. Her strategy can be
  assumed to be deterministic and based solely on the sequence of
  light-states she has so far observed.
Suppose that Alice's strategy calls for her (in some circumstance)
  to change the state (of the light) after finding it in the state in which
  she last left it. Then the adversary could have brought her back
  immediately to the room, "wasting" her previous visit; in effect,
  this piece of Alice's strategy can only give the adversary an extra
  option. We may assume, therefore, that Alice never changes the
  state when she finds it where she last left it.
Next, suppose Alice is required at some point to leave the state
  as she found it. Then we claim we can assume she will never act
  again! Why? Because if the adversary doesn't want her ever to act
  again, he can insure that she never sees a state different from the
  state she now finds. He can do this because if Alice did become
  permanently inactive, at least one of the states (on or off) will recur
  infinitely often; suppose it's the "off" state. Then he can schedule
  Alice so that she sees "off" now and at every subsequent visit,
  hence, by the previous argument, she will never act again. So, once
  more, the adversary always has the option of silencing Alice so we
  may assume that it is his only option.
Obviously, Alice can't then begin with the instruction to leave
  the state as she finds it, since in that case she is forever inactive and
  no one will ever know that she has visited the room.3 Say she is
  supposed to turn the light on if it's off, otherwise leave it on. Then
  she won't be doing anything until she again finds the light off, at
  which point she may only turn it on again or go inactive forever.
  Thus, she is limited to turning the light on some number of times
  $j$ (which may as well be constant, else the adversary has more
  options). We call this strategy $+j$, where $j$ is a positive integer or
  infinity. Similar arguments apply if she is instructed to turn the
  light off on first visit, leading to strategy $-j$.
The only remaining possibility is that she is instructed to change
  the state of the light at first visit, in which case she must proceed
  as above depending on whether she turned the first light on or off.
  This again only gives the adversary an additional option.
We are reduced to each prisoner having a strategy $+ j$ or $- j$ for
  various $j$. If they all turn lights only off (or only on), no one will
  learn anything; thus, we may assume Alice's strategy is $+j$ and
  Bob's is $- k$. 

At this point, the question is answered. Every strategy is of the form $\pm j$ for $j\in \mathbb N\cup \{\infty\}$, and it is clear that no one of these works when all prisoners use it. Here is the rest of the solution in case anyone is curious.

If Charlie turns lights on, Alice will never be able to
  tell the difference between Bob and Charlie both having finished,
  and Bob and Charlie each having one task left. If Charlie turns
  lights off, it's Bob who will be "left in the dark."
Putting all this together, we have that for a prisoner to be able
  to determine that everyone has visited, she must turn the light on,
  while everyone else turns it off (or vice-versa). In fact, if her strategy
  is $+j_1$ and the others are $- j_2, \dots, -j_{n}$ then it's easy to check that
  having each $j_i$ finite, but at least $2$, and $j_1$ greater than the sum of
  the other $j_i$'s minus the least of them, is necessary and sufficient.