Whenever a hawk meets a dove, the dove is killed. Whenever two hawks meet, they fight to death, and both are killed. And if two doves meet, nothing bad happens.

There are H hawks and D doves, and you are either a hawk or a dove. Assuming that meetings are random, what are your chances of survival?

There are plenty of options here...
Hawk = H , Dove = D , % is the survival chance

If 1 H... Then H = 100% ; D = 0%
If 2 H... Then H = 0% ; D = 50% ( As the 2 hawks will eventually meet and die leaving the remaining doves alive )
If 3 H... Then H = 33.33% ; D = 0% ( As the remaing hawk will kill all the doves )
If 4 H... Then H = 0% ; D = 50% ( Assuming the Dove has an equal chance of fighting/ not fighting a hawk before the Hawks kill themselves )

Summary :

H is even ; Chance of survival for Hawk = 0% ; Dove = 50%
H is odd ; Chance of survival for Hawk = 1/H ; Dove = 0%

Posted by Syzygy on 2004-09-13 09:56:25