The chances are 1/2 you idiots. He said "what are the chances the other dime lands on heads" thus you ignore the fact there's two dimes at all. Chances of one dime landing on heads is one from two sides. Simple math.
Ack, sudden sharp pain (that won't go away) under my left rib cage. What the fuck is this. Feels like a muscle clamping up, but why... Wait, which side is the Human heart on again?
It isn't the probability of one coin landing on heads but two coins landing on heads. Anyways, the setup is much like Sebur said...
Throwing two dimes gives you 4 possible outcomes(HH,HT,TH,TT), since getting two tails is impossible in this scenarios that leaves three outcomes; it would be 1/3 chance that the other dime lands heads.
Only, if we know the first landed on heads I'm not sure TH is possible either since tails heads can't be possible if you already got heads on the first. I hate math personally.. I'd say it'd have to be just HH & HT which would make it 2/4 -> 1/2. But that's just too damn logical to be right.
I heard a similar question awhile back which I still disagree with this math genius friend of mine that the answer wasn't 1/2 but I think it was 1/3 or 1/4, I don't remember. No matter how many times he explained it I swore up and down that it made no logical sense and that I was right, math be damned. Either way, I hate math... shit like this just doesn't compute.
Here's some other math riddles:
Customer walks into the store to buy a bed. A salesman tells him that the price is 600 pounds. Customer is surprised the price is so high. Then the second salesman says: "You know, the first salesman has a funny habit - he makes all numbers 12 times larger than they really are. However, everything else he says is true." Customer replies: "Well, that means that the price for the bed is 600/12 = 50 pounds. Good." The first salesman then intervenes: "Who told you that, the second salesman? You might want to know that every number he tells you is 3 times smaller than it really is; but everything else he says is true." What is the actual price of the bed?
There is a nation of islanders living on an island. The islanders can have either blue or green eyes (no other colours). If a person ever finds out the colour of his own eyes, he (or she) must leave the island by the end of the day. Each person knows the colours of other people's eyes, but not his own (there are no mirrors). Conversations about the eyes are prohibited. At some point, an outsider comes to the island and makes the following public announcement, heard and understood by all people on the island: "At least one of you has blue eyes". Assuming all people on the island are completely truthful and logical, what is the eventual outcome?
1. Solving this problem you may run into a paradox - different reasoning will lead to contradicting solutions. Describe the paradox and resolve it (show the logical fallacies in one of the ways of reasoning and provide the correct one).
Ten pirates found 50 gold coins and want to split it. All pirates have relative ranks and the pirate with the highest rank divides the treasure. Then all pirates vote on the proposal and if at least 50% of pirates vote for it, the money is split; if however less than 50% of the pirates support the proposal, then the proposer is killed and the next most senior pirate makes a new proposal and the entire process is repeated. When the pirates vote, each of them makes his decision based on three factors (listed from the highest to the lowest priority):
1. Each pirate wants to survive.
2. Each pirate wants to maximize his profit.
3. Each pirate would rather vote to kill other pirate, if it doesn't affect his own well-being.
A. How will these ten pirates split 50 gold coins?
B. What's the largest number of pirates that can split 50 gold coins without killing a single pirate? How would they do it?
A thin tall tree was cut and is now falling down. How does a tree trunk fall – as a straight line, with a concave up or with a concave down? Assume that the tree was cut completely and that air resistance is negligible.
