c4countdown

The real problem here is the deficiencies of the dictionary. The entry for, say, LAGER (mass noun) has a glaring omission - the subsidiary (count noun) meaning as a glass of the said alcoholic beverage. If the lackey were to be employed in Oxford getting the next issue of the dictionary right we cou...

Only just noticed this. I agree that a score of 100 is the equivalent of 60 in the old days. They are mathematically pretty much equivalent, they are both nice round numbers, and you need to score consistently to reach them. So why are there so many more 800s than 480s? 1. Luck. You can get away wit...

Just as a postscript I showed this to my son, who pointed out that there is actually a finite number of numbers that can be selected from. It's limited by the age of the writer, the size of pieces of paper that a human being can turn over, the size and strength of the table the paper rests on, the n...

I was actually thinking of posting the same puzzle!

I'll just say to anyone who thinks it's 5/9 . . . What would your answer be if all nine were taller than him, or when he'd only met one person?

David

Yes, very interesting! All the stuff about distributions and functions and random numbers is surely over the top. If the number you come up with is higher than both the written numbers, or lower than both of them your chance is 50/50. If the number is between them you'll be correct. So your chance i...

Surely the whole essence of the original problem was that the numbers were selected randomly from a boundless selection. If there is some sort of probability distribution it's a different matter altogether. If we know the parameters of the range, it's easy. Picking a random number from the range as ...

I thought I posted something yesterday, but it hasn't appeared, and in any case I hadn't noticed there was more than one page of postings, so here's something more up-to-date! My problem is with the notion of random numbers up to infinity. Suppose you pick 100 random whole numbers, and take the larg...