Puzzle/logic question

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Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
Originally posted by: yuchai
Your "obvious" answer of 1/5 is analogous to the correct 51/70 answer in the original question.

Yes, it is. When you revise the question to make sense, the answer because plainly obvious and it's not much of a puzzle at all. It's pretty much revealed itself as a "puzzle" only because of ambiguous wording.

Originally posted by: yuchai
But, for the longest time, you were arguing for 21/40, which is analogous to the 1/6 in your question.

Yeah, for the same reasons. Ambiguous wording. There are two ways to interpret the question.

1- Random means random, there is a 5% chance that it is any given coin, the answer is 52.5% or whatever.

2- Random doesn't mean anything, the "randomness" is controlled by the fact that 4 heads were rolled, biasing the random selection towards the fake coin. Leading to the 51/70 or whatever answer.

The fact that even my incredibly simple example of rolling a 6 sided die and not rolling a particular number confuses people shows just how confusing the puzzle can be made by ambiguous wording.

edit:
Anyway, I'm done with the thread.
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,017
62
91
Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Originally posted by: yuchai
Your "obvious" answer of 1/5 is analogous to the correct 51/70 answer in the original question.

Yes, it is. When you revise the question to make sense, the answer because plainly obvious and it's not much of a puzzle at all. It's pretty much revealed itself as a "puzzle" only because of ambiguous wording.

Originally posted by: yuchai
But, for the longest time, you were arguing for 21/40, which is analogous to the 1/6 in your question.

Yeah, for the same reasons. Ambiguous wording. There are two ways to interpret the question.

1- Random means random, there is a 5% chance that it is any given coin, the answer is 52.5% or whatever.

2- Random doesn't mean anything, the "randomness" is controlled by the fact that 4 heads were rolled, biasing the random selection towards the fake coin. Leading to the 51/70 or whatever answer.

The fact that even my incredibly simple example of rolling a 6 sided die and not rolling a particular number confuses people shows just how confusing the puzzle can be made by ambiguous wording.

edit:
Anyway, I'm done with the thread.

Apparently nothing has ever happened in the past
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,230
701
126
Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Originally posted by: yuchai
Your "obvious" answer of 1/5 is analogous to the correct 51/70 answer in the original question.

Yes, it is. When you revise the question to make sense, the answer because plainly obvious and it's not much of a puzzle at all. It's pretty much revealed itself as a "puzzle" only because of ambiguous wording.

Originally posted by: yuchai
But, for the longest time, you were arguing for 21/40, which is analogous to the 1/6 in your question.

Yeah, for the same reasons. Ambiguous wording. There are two ways to interpret the question.

1- Random means random, there is a 5% chance that it is any given coin, the answer is 52.5% or whatever.

2- Random doesn't mean anything, the "randomness" is controlled by the fact that 4 heads were rolled, biasing the random selection towards the fake coin. Leading to the 51/70 or whatever answer.

The fact that even my incredibly simple example of rolling a 6 sided die and not rolling a particular number confuses people shows just how confusing the puzzle can be made by ambiguous wording.

edit:
Anyway, I'm done with the thread.

I sincerely hope that you're not going into (or are currently in) any type of mathematical or engineering field. I also hope that you aren't a writer.

Edit: For that matter, I hope that you aren't involved with ANY field that involves critical or logical thinking.
 

Mo0o

Lifer
Jul 31, 2001
24,227
3
76
God I dont know how DrPizza has the patience to teach kids. I feel like punch this guy in the head
 

CoinOperatedBoy

Golden Member
Dec 11, 2008
1,809
0
76
Originally posted by: Chiropteran
There are two ways to interpret the question.

1- Random means random, there is a 5% chance that it is any given coin, the answer is 52.5% or whatever.

2- Random doesn't mean anything, the "randomness" is controlled by the fact that 4 heads were rolled, biasing the random selection towards the fake coin. Leading to the 51/70 or whatever answer.

Done or not: You're introducing this concept of "bias" that is completely fucking meaningless. On a timeline, you have events that happen linearly.

1. Chose coin randomly.
2. Flipped heads.
3. Flipped heads.
4. Flipped heads.
5. Flipped heads.
6. NOW. YOU ARE HERE AND ABOUT TO FLIP AGAIN.

Events 2-5 did not retroactively affect or "bias" which coin you chose or how random it was, regardless of the probability that these events would happen. You didn't fucking time travel and tell yourself to pick that coin because it would produce four heads. Those events just provide you with more information at (6) and allow you to more accurately guess which coin you chose, and by extension predict what may happen in the future.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
49,601
167
111
www.slatebrookfarm.com
Chiropteran, just on the off chance that you're not trolling, I offer for you two different (but closely related) scenarios.

One: You have two coins. One is H/T, the other is H/H. (Let's label the coins A and B, thus you have heads on A (HA), tails on A (TA), the first head on B (H1B) and the 2nd head on B (H2B). I mix them up thoroughly and randomly select one side of a coin to show you. HA, TA, H1B, and H2B are all equally likely, so there's a 1/4 chance that you're seeing any of those sides. Here's the puzzler: If you see heads, what's the probability that the other side is also heads? Well, if you saw a tails, you'd know exactly which side you were looking at, and you'd answer that there's a 100% probability that the other side is heads. But, you're not looking at a tails, you're looking at a heads. You know that there are 3 heads, and each is equally as likely as the others to be the side that you're looking at. Intuitively, most people would say "50%" because you could have either coin, and each coin has equal probability. Thus, what you're looking at might be HA, it might be H1B, and it might be H2B. Each of those 3 has an equal probability of occurring. And, for 2 out of 3 of them, the other side is a head. Only one out of 3 (HA), the other side is a tails. So, if you have those two coins and see only one side of one coin, and it's heads, what's the probability that the other side is heads? The answer is 67%


Scenario Two: You have 20 100-sided dice. 19 of those dice have the sides numbered from 1 to 100. The 20th die has "50" on every side. You randomly reach into a bag and select one of those 20 dice. You roll it and are only able to observe the side that comes up. You see a "50". You think to yourself, "well, it could have been any of the dice."
You roll it again and get "50" a 2nd time. Again, you think to yourself, "well, that doesn't prove anything. It could be any of the dice."
You roll it again and again and again, 10 times in a row. Each time you get a "50". You're a little slow in the head (apparently), so you roll it again and again and again. Finally, around about the 60th roll (would it really take you this long?), you finally remark "you know, I think that I probably have the die that has a 50 on every side. You keep rolling again and again and again. On the 120th roll, someone asks you "what do you think the probability is that your next roll is a 50? Hopefully, your answer would sound like this "I'm pretty damn sure that I've got the die that has a 50 on every side. I can't absolutely guarantee a 50 on the next roll, because there's an incredibly unlikely chance that I just got lucky and rolled a 50 119 consecutive times on a 100 sided die numbered from 1 to 100, but I'd guess the probability of getting a 50 on the next roll is damn close to 100%."

Now, see that "probably" that I bolded (underlined and italicized) for you? A lot of us can calculate the exact probability of that probably. Starting with the 1st role, and every roll after that, we can calculate the probability that you were holding the "50" die. (Starting before you rolled, the probability of having the "50" die was 1 in 20. The first time you rolled and got a "50", a smart person would be thinking "you know, there's a pretty good chance that I've got the die with 50 on every side." If it helps, imagine that instead of 100 sided dice, they are 11 billion sided dice, one of which has 50 on every side. It should be pretty intuitive in that case that on the first roll, if you got a 50, you can be almost certain that you have the die with 50 on every side.



Now, back to the original problem:
One of the coins is a trick coin that has both sides heads. You pick a random coin from the jar and flip it 4 times, and each time it comes up heads. What are the chances that the next flip will come up heads?
Hopefully that no longer seems ambiguous. It's not.

Edit: and remember, in each of those alternate problems I posted, you picked the die/coin at random.

Your argument:
"There are 3 jellybeans in a jar: a red one, a yellow one, and a green one. I select one of the jellybeans, completely at random, then look at it. OMFG, it's red!"
You: "nuh uh, it's not randomly selected if it was red."
 

CoinOperatedBoy

Golden Member
Dec 11, 2008
1,809
0
76
Originally posted by: DrPizza
Your argument:
"There are 3 jellybeans in a jar: a red one, a yellow one, and a green one. I select one of the jellybeans, completely at random, then look at it. OMFG, it's red!"
You: "nuh uh, it's not randomly selected if it was red."

The real question is if the red jellybean is a nice fruity flavor or that sneaky bastard cinnamon.
 

rocadelpunk

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2001
5,589
1
81
Originally posted by: CoinOperatedBoy
Originally posted by: DrPizza
Your argument:
"There are 3 jellybeans in a jar: a red one, a yellow one, and a green one. I select one of the jellybeans, completely at random, then look at it. OMFG, it's red!"
You: "nuh uh, it's not randomly selected if it was red."

The real question is if the red jellybean is a nice fruity flavor or that sneaky bastard cinnamon.

lmao

what happened to this thread after the correct solution was given...sheesh
 

Born2bwire

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2005
9,840
6
71
Originally posted by: Mo0o
Originally posted by: CoinOperatedBoy
Chiropteran trolled the 9-pages-of-fuck out of us.

He's either really crafty or really stupid

Given what I recall of his posting history he is either the Kaiser Soze of trolling or the Forrest Gump of posting.
 

Mo0o

Lifer
Jul 31, 2001
24,227
3
76
Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Originally posted by: Mo0o
Originally posted by: CoinOperatedBoy
Chiropteran trolled the 9-pages-of-fuck out of us.

He's either really crafty or really stupid

Given what I recall of his posting history he is either the Kaiser Soze of trolling or the Forrest Gump of posting.

ROFL, thats a great analogy
 
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