Ten red socks and ten blue socks are all mixed up in a dresser drawer. The 20 socks are exactly alike except for their color. The room is in pitch darkness and you want two matching socks. What is the smallest number of socks you must take out of the drawer in order to be certain that you have a pair that match?
Can anyone guess the answer?
Here's an interesting question I got today from my brother.
"Hey I have a question for you. I'm helping to organize some stuff for Engineer's Week next week. I'm supposed to come up with some brainteaser engineering-related questions to mail out over the week. Winners will be drawn from the correct answers. One of the problems last year was that everyone Googled the question and found the answers online somewhere. Do you have any actual books that would have questions along those lines that people couldn't just look up on the net?"
Mathematical Recreations as the subject brings up plenty of titles.
Martin Gardner is a rather prolific author of math oriented puzzles and theory. Take a look at his Wikipedia entry. He sounds like a pretty interesting guy. For more math fun, The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems is here at the library available to borrow right now!
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2 comments:
Based on this story, one might infer that engineers are a bunch of cheaters! On the contrary, we're just very practical. The parameter space given to us did not preclude using the internet to find the solution.
I didn't mean to make that inference. I am a huge proponent of practicality; I love it. It would be interesting either way if you'd like to exercise your logic skills or if you'd rather exercise your Internet searching skills.
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