31 October 2011

This is actually not a math question

It's a logic question (and there's no correct answer).  Posted and discussed at Reddit, via Neatorama.


  1. THat is why I like the version where one answer is 0%.

  2. But of course the 0% wouldn't be a correct answer, either.

  3. In this case, actually, I believe 0% is the correct answer:

    There are four possible answers, therefore, the probability of randomly choosing a correct answer is in theory 25%. But 25% appears in two of four possible answer choices, so the probability of choosing the correct answer is 2/4 = 50% (b). But then if 50% is the correct answer, which is one out of four = 1/4 = 25% of the options, the correct answer is 25%. (c) 60% is totally irrelevant. Since (a), (b), and (d) contradict each other inherently, the correct answer is 0%, which does not appear as a choice.

    *However*, if, as A. Fischer notes, 0% were an option instead of 60%, there would be no correct answer because we would be back in the neverending loop (0% = 1/4 options = 25% = 2/4 options = 50%, etc). So 0% is only correct because it is not available as a choice.

  4. To put it back to mathematics:

    I have to agree to O, because the question does not ask you to choose one of the four given answers. So if you choose one of the infinite possible answers at random (and only one out of the endless amount of answers is the right one) the chances are as close to 0% as you want it to be, but still positive. So every given positive percentage would be wrong and 0% fails, too. And it would be the right answer if it didn't. So we are back to disagree.

    So there is one question left: What are the chances that we all agree on one answer? a) 25%, b) 50%, c) 0%, d) 25%

  5. "To put it back to mathematics"

    That's exactly the problem. It is not a mathematical question. The paradigm is a random selection. Therefore the answer cannot be incorrect.


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...