nice job aphie also: bra, bras, brass care, cares, caress guess these were too easy... the other two were ok, but I couldn't come up with anything at all on this singular/plural one without looking at the solution.
I don't think any assumptions have to be made. Everyone has his own way of approaching the problem, I suppose, but once you determine the givens, i.e., house colors, Norwegian, Dunhill, Horses, Englishman, Milk, and Coffee, it's just a matter of moving things around a bit. I didn't keep track of time, but it didn't seem to take all that long. On the other hand, you most definitely do not have to be in the top 2% to get this. Good puzzle, though. --Db
In the town of Fruitals, 15% percent of people have unlisted phone numbers. If you randomly select 200 Fruitilians from the phone book, approximately how many would have unlisted numbers?
I wanted to buy 711 shares of SE for $7.11 per share on 7/11/2002. But I didn't get a fill, not even at 7:11 pm.
I haven't yet seen a convincing, concise solution to the "Monty Hall" problem. I always see a page or more of "if-this if-that" gobbledy-gook (no offense guys!). I also had problems with the Monty Hall problem.. My initial reaction was: after a losing door is revealed, there is a 100% chance that one of the remaining doors has the winner. There are 2 doors so that is 50/50. Anyway, the simplest convincing explanation I can give is this: When you initially choose the winning door (less likely at 1/3), switching does not improve your odds. However, when you initially choose a losing door (more likely at 2/3), switching gives you 100% chance of winning since Monty must reveal the other losing door.
English is not your first language, is it? The only way you avoided giving an "if-this if-that" type of answer is by incorrectly using the word "when" instead of "if".
An analysis of all this was provided in the New York Times in 1991: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/Monty_Hall.html --Db