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0 pointsdllthomas1y ago0 comments

Nah, there's a lot of space between "this should be the favored interpretation" and "this is strictly implied" - especially in the context of a math puzzle!

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the_af1y ago· 2 in thread

I don't think there is. This is a simple brain teaser. It's fun because the right answer is counterintuitive, that's all.

It's not at all about "rules lawyering" the premise of the puzzle.

alexey-salmin1y ago

But this makes no sense. You're proving the "counterintuitive answer" with the probability theory but when confronted with the fact that your proof is not mathematically correct you say "this is a simple brain teaser". I don't see how it changes anything. If you rely on the probability theory then you have to do it correctly, there's no special brain teaser version of math.

It's like going around saying that "counterintuitive answer to equation x/x=1 is 17" and then "prove it" by dividing 17 by 17 . When confronted with the fact that in math to solve an equation is to find ALL solutions and not just one, you say "It's not at all about rules lawyering the premise of the puzzle". Well avoid dealing with the math then because the math in fact is all about the rules.

the_af1y ago

> But this makes no sense. You're proving the "counterintuitive answer" with the probability theory but when confronted with the fact that your proof is not mathematically correct you say "this is a simple brain teaser"

The answer IS mathematically correct. It's just counterintuitive and it made some PhDs trip.

Nobody here -- not even you, before -- was arguing it's mathematically incorrect. Some people, when told the right answer, claimed the problem is underspecified and admits more than one context that may change the answer, which is not at all the same as saying the answer is mathematically incorrect! Not even Diaconis, the person some of you are so eager to defend (for some bizarre reason) claims it's "mathematically incorrect"!

It seems you're grasping at straws now.

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