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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.math,net.misc,net.rec.bridge
Subject: Re: simple (?) statistics problem solved
Message-ID: <903@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Aug-83 13:00:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.903
Posted: Thu Aug 18 13:00:44 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Aug-83 13:19:56 EDT
References: <1814@rabbit.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 18

Combinatorics were the bane of my existance in high school. They did not
appear to work logically like the rest of mathematics, they seemed entirely
subjective to me at the time. QED -- you did not do very well unless you
had the same subjective view as the teacher. or so I thought.

The problem with such puzzles is you have to determine what is relevant,
and call that the 'sample set' or something like that. I pick the wrong
set. If someone could explain to me why what I did was wrong, perhaps
I could finally understand combinatorics...

To begin with, you have an equal chance of picking a 2-gold, a 2-silver or a
1-of-each cabinet. You eliminate one of these when you make your choice. I
toss this one out of the window and say that you have a 50% chance of either
cabinet. The answer says that I should not have tossed the other cabinet
out of the window. Why is that silly cabinet relavant to the question?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura