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Clairvoyance (Posted on 2022-07-11) Difficulty: 2 of 5
When Raymond Smullyan was teaching probability at Princeton, he told one class about the birthday paradox - the fact that if there are 23 or more people in a room, the chances are greater than 50 percent that at least two of them share a birthday.
There were only 19 students in the class, so the chances of sharing a birthday were quite small.
One boy said: “I’ll bet you a quarter that two of us here have the same birthday.
I give you my word that I don’t know the birthday of anyone here other than my own.
Nevertheless I’ll bet you as I have said.”
Smulllyan took the bet and lost.

Why?

Source: A mixed bag by R.S. 2016

See The Solution Submitted by Ady TZIDON    
Rating: 5.0000 (1 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
No Subject | Comment 4 of 6 |
Excellent point, broll!

OTOH, it's possible that the twins were fraternal and didn't look alike (I have twin granddaughters who don't even look like cousins.)

Another thought: if the twins were born on different days - say one a few minutes before midnight and the other a few minutes after - then Smullyan would have had the last laugh!

A nice puzzle on an age-old topic.

  Posted by JayDeeKay on 2022-07-13 14:00:44
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