CHALLENGES 101-103 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
CHALLENGE 101:
You have fifty coins totaling $1.00. You drop one down an open drain while tossing the coins in your hand. What is the chance that you will have lost a quarter?
CHALLENGE 101 ANSWER:
There are two ways you can have fifty coins totalling $1.00: Two dimes, forty pennies, and eight nickels; or two dimes, forty-five pennies, two nickels, and one quarter. These arrangements are equally probable, so there is a one-half chance you had a quarter to begin with. The probability that you then dropped that quarter from all the coins in your hand is one fiftieth. Therefore, the total probability that you lost a quarter is one half times one fiftieth, or one one-hundreth.
CHALLENGE 102:
Take the number of states before Alaska and Hawaii were added.
Double that and add the number of "winds". Then subtract the number of Ali Baba's thieves, not counting Ali Baba. Divide by the number of days in May minus 1. Cube the result. What do you get?
CHALLENGE 102 ANSWER:
8. There were forty-eight states before Alaska, four winds blowing, forty thieves and thirty-one days in May.
CHALLENGE 103:
My quiz for this day, January 08, is most unusual. As is this
paragraph. What is so unusual about it? If you look hard, you
should find what it is without too much difficulty. Try hard to
spot it. How long did you think about it?
CHALLENGE 103 ANSWER:
There is no "E" in the paragraph. "E" is the most commonly used letter in the English language.
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