Mr. Blue has 12 brown gloves and 8 black gloves in a drawer in his closet. If he blindly pulls gloves from the drawer, what's the minimum number of gloves Mr. Blue will have to pick, to be certain he has a pair of gloves of the same color?

Mr. Blue has 12 brown gloves and 8 black gloves in a drawer in his closet. If he blindly pulls gloves from the drawer, what's the minimum number of gloves Mr. Blue will have to pick, to be certain he has a pair of gloves of the same color?

Well, worst case he picks all one hand of one color, and all one hand of the other color (not necessarily the same hand). So that is 6 brown and 4 black, which is 10 gloves total so far.

Then if he draws just one more glove, he will definitely have a pair.

So the answer is 11.

Fun!

Posted by nikki on 2004-10-06 08:30:41