"You find yourself sitting next to a stranger on a plane. The following dialogue occurs:
You: 'How many children do you have?'
She: 'Two.'
You:'Is at least one of them a boy?'
She: 'Yes.'
What is the probality that both are boys?"
- Martin Gardner, quoting himself in Weird Water & Fuzzy Logic*
To see the answer, scroll and highlight the hidden text at the bottom of this post (or select highlight all.)
*Gotta love a library book sale. I got a "used" hardcover copy of this for a dollar. I put quotes around used because although the book is wrapped and marked like a library book it's in mint condition and even has that new book smell ... I doubt it was ever checked out.
The intuitive answer is 50%. That's wrong though. Think of it like this:
The woman has two kids ... call them K1 and K2. According to her answers, there are the following possibilities that fit:
K1 - male, K2 - male
K1 -male, K2 - female
K1 - female, K2 male
This means there is a 1 in 3 chance that both are boys - the answer is thus 33%.
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3 comments:
Even more facinating is your use of this new blogging trick!
Although now I think I know how you did it. Turned the text to white?
LOL
I once bought one of those "used" books, decades old, from a library. A manufacturing error had resulted in the pages not being cut apart properly. I had to cut the paper to open it.
Pragmatism, by William James, if I recall correctly.
Yep, I turned the text white.
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