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Will You Be A Ghostbuster Or A World Destroyer?

Posted on Sat 16 September 2017 in misc
• Tagged with Probability, Ipython, Mathematics, Simulation, Five Thirty Eight, Riddler

Riddler Express

SEP. 15, 2017 AT 8:00 AM

From Max Weinreich, a phantasmal puzzle:

Twenty ghostbusters are on their annual camping retreat. Two of them, Abe and Betty, have discovered that another pair, Candace and Dan, are in fact ghosts posing as ghostbusters. Abe and Betty hatch a plan: When all 20 campers are sitting in a circle around the campfire, Abe will fire his proton pack at Candace, and Betty will simultaneously fire her proton pack at Dan, annihilating the ghosts. However, if two proton streams cross, it means the end of all life on Earth.


Is your friend full of it?

Posted on Sat 02 September 2017 in misc
• Tagged with Probability, Ipython, Mathematics, Simulation, Five Thirty Eight, Riddler

Five Thirty Eight Riddler Express Problem - Sep 1, 2017

You’re hanging out with some friends, shooting the breeze and talking sports. One of them brags to the group that he once made 17 free throws in a row after years of not having touched a basketball. You think the claim sounds unlikely, but plausible. Another friend scoffs, thinking it completely impossible. Let’s give your bragging friend the benefit of the doubt and say he’s a 70-percent free-throw shooter.


Whole Tablet, Half Tablet

Posted on Thu 31 August 2017 in misc
• Tagged with Probability, Ipython, Mathematics, Markov Chains, Five Thirty Eight, Riddlerr

Five Thirty Eight - Riddler Express (August 25th)

You take half of a vitamin every morning. The vitamins are sold in a bottle of 100 (whole) tablets, so at first you have to cut the tablets in half. Every day you randomly pull one thing from the bottle — if it’s a whole tablet, you cut it in half and put the leftover half back in the bottle. If it’s a half-tablet, you take the vitamin. You just bought a fresh bottle. How many days, on average, will it be before you pull a half-tablet out of the bottle?


Golden Saddle Problem

Posted on Fri 04 November 2016 in misc
• Tagged with Probability, Ipython, Mathematics, Game Theory, Saddle Point, Peter Norvig, Five Thirty Eight, Riddler

Nothing excites me more than a good mathematical puzzle. Even if I don't end up solving one, I always come out richer in the process by improving the way I think. Combinatorial problems in particular are my favourite.

So you can imagine my excitement when I came across this really interesting probability / game theory riddle recently, courtesy Peter Norvig's Ipython notebooks