Friday, August 6, 2010

Another Puzzle That Keeps On Giving

The 'boy born on Tues." problem has been gaining the same sort of traction and attention formerly accorded to the "Monty Hall" problem; both involve issues of probability which is not only one of the trickiest realms of math for lay people to understand, but indeed one of the trickiest areas for mathematicians themselves; and the 'boy born on Tues.' riddle is trickier than its 'Monty Hall' predecessor. "Division By Zero" blog has done another post on the problem, interestingly playing around a bit more with the variables:

http://divisbyzero.com/2010/08/05/the-left-handed-boy-problem/

If you haven't yet had your fill of this puzzle check it out. It was also interesting to learn from the post that this problem (in its usual form) originated with a 3-sentence presentation at the last "Gathering For Gardner," just a few months back.

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