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wu :: forums    riddles    putnam exam (pure math) (Moderators: Icarus, Eigenray, towr, william wu, Grimbal, SMQ)    Probability... Surprising Answer. « Previous topic | Next topic » Pages: 1  Reply Notify of replies Send Topic Print    Author  Topic: Probability... Surprising Answer.  (Read 799 times) Johan_Gunardi Guest Probability... Surprising Answer.   « on: May 20th, 2007, 9:11pm » Quote Modify Remove http://www.qbyte.org/puzzles/p018s.html   I am poor in English. I don't really understand why the answer is 1/2. Can anybody explain it to me? IP Logged towr wu::riddles Moderator Uberpuzzler Some people are average, some are just mean.     Gender: Posts: 13730 Re: Probability... Surprising Answer.   « Reply #1 on: May 20th, 2007, 11:20pm » Quote Modify The problem is symmetric: you keep the same problem when you switch heads and tails in the problem statement.   So the probability of having more heads must be the same as the probability of having more tails. Seeing as those are the only two options, and total probability must add to 1, both must be 1/2. IP Logged Wikipedia, Google, Mathworld, Integer sequence DB Pages: 1  Reply Notify of replies Send Topic Print Forum Jump: ----------------------------- riddles -----------------------------  - easy   - medium   - hard   - what am i   - what happened   - microsoft   - cs => putnam exam (pure math)   - suggestions, help, and FAQ   - general problem-solving / chatting / whatever ----------------------------- general -----------------------------  - guestbook   - truth   - complex analysis   - wanted   - psychology   - chinese « Previous topic | Next topic »

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