You and a friend are standing in front of two houses. In each house lives a family with two children.
"The family on the left has a boy who loves history, but their other child prefers math," your friend tells you.
"The family on the right has a 7-year old boy, and they just had a new baby," he explains.
"Does either family have a girl?" you ask.
"I'm not sure," your friend says. "But pick the family that you think is more likely to have a girl. If they do have a girl, I'll give you $100."
Which family should you pick, or does it not matter?
You should pick the house on the left. Specifically, there is a 2/3 chance that the family on the left has a girl, whereas there's only a 1/2 chance that the house on the right has a girl.
This is a very counterintuitive riddle. It seems like there should always be a 1/2 chance that a given child is a girl. And in fact there is. The key word there is "given". Because we are not asking about a "given" child for the house on the left. We are asking about what could be either child. Whereas for the house on the right, we are asking about a "given" child...specifically, we're asking about the younger child.
There are 3 possibilities for the children in the first house:
Younger Older
Girl Boy
Boy Girl
Boy Boy
There is no "Girl, Girl" option because we know the house on the left has at least one boy. Since each of these 3 options is equally likely, and 2 of them have one girl, there is a 2/3 chance of there being a girl in the house on the left.
For the house on the right, because we already know the older child is a boy, there are only two possibilities:
Younger Older
Girl Boy
Boy Boy
And as we can see, there is a 1/2 chance for the house on the right having a girl.
Search for: Boy or Girl paradox
A group of campers have been on vacation so long, that they've forgotten the day of the week. The following conversation ensues.
Darryl: "What's the day? I dont think it is Thursday, Friday or Saturday."
Tracy: "Well that doesn't narrow it down much. Yesterday was Sunday."
Melissa: "Yesterday wasn't Sunday, tomorrow is Sunday."
Ben: "The day after tomorrow is Saturday."
Adrienne: "The day before yesterday was Thursday."
Susie: "Tomorrow is Saturday."
David: "I know that the day after tomorrow is not Friday."
If only one person's statement is true, what day of the week is it?
Alone I am 24th, with a friend I am 20.
Another friend and I am unclean.
What am I?
The letter 'X'. It is the 24th letter of the alphabet, XX in Roman numerals is 20, and XXX is a label for movies that are very inappropriate (unclean).
There were two women, standing and facing the opposite ways. The first lady was facing south and the second lady was facing north. But, they could see each other. How is that possible?
The Smith family is a very wealthy family that lives in a big, circular home. One morning, Mr. Smith woke up and found his gardener's body. He knew it was one of his employees who had killed him. So he asked them what they were doing in the morning and he got these replies.
Driver: "I was outside washing the car."
Maid: "I was dusting the corners of the house."
Cook: "I was starting to make lunch for later."
From the replies he knew who the killer was. Can you guess who it was?
The maid, because they lived in a circular house and she was apparently "dusting the corners" of the house at the time of the murder - the house is round, therefore it has no corners.
An intelligent trader travels from one place to another with 3 sacks having 30 coconuts each. No sack can hold more than 30 coconuts. On the way, he passes 30 check points. At each check point, he has to give one coconut for every sack he is carrying. What is the maximum number of coconuts that he can have with him at the end of his journey?
He will have 25 coconuts with him at the end. The trick is to reduce the number of sacks as you pass checkpoints. The first 10 checkpoints require 3 coconuts each, which empties his first sack. The next 15 checkpoints require 2 coconuts each, which will empty his second stack. Now, he is left with 1 sack and 5 more checkpoints. So, the 5 checkpoints will take 1 coconut each. Therefore, he will be left with 25 coconuts.
