A box contains 12 marbles of three different colors – Green, Yellow and Blue – 4 of each.

If you were to close your eyes and pick them at random, how many marbles must you take out to be sure that there are at least two of one color among the marbles picked out ?

(In reply to solution by silvis)

Like many problems there's more than one answer depending on the interpretation of the question. In this one 'one colour' could be taken to mean a specific colour or it could mean any colour.

Silvis's answer's correct if you want to have at least two of a specific colour - ie you specify the colour (blue) before you start picking.

However, if you want to have two marbles of any colour (ie no colour is specified before picking) then there's a different answer which is given in previous posts.

Posted by fwaff on 2003-03-18 22:13:30