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Today's Puzzle a.k.a. Stupid S4 Tricks
Nov. 23rd, 2006 11:59 pmYou have one (1) ordinary six-sided die (i.e., the traditionally marked, uniform-density, cubical kind that you could find in any Vegas casino within about 5 minutes).
You need to make a random choice between four (4) alternatives, same probability for each (25%, i.e., barring the occasional coin-landing-on-edge weirdness that supposedly can happen in real life, which we won't worry about).
You could, e.g., roll the die and if you don't get 1,2,3,or 4, just roll again and keep rolling until you do. That would be too easy, and also could conceivably take a while if you get unlucky with the 5s and 6s.
But the real problem is that, due to various contrivances entirely beyond your control, it just so happens that if you roll the die a second time, you will be plagued by frogs, and (trust me on this) you really do not want to be plagued by frogs.
So you absolutely have to do it in one (1) roll. Good luck.
( hint and potential spoilage... )
You need to make a random choice between four (4) alternatives, same probability for each (25%, i.e., barring the occasional coin-landing-on-edge weirdness that supposedly can happen in real life, which we won't worry about).
You could, e.g., roll the die and if you don't get 1,2,3,or 4, just roll again and keep rolling until you do. That would be too easy, and also could conceivably take a while if you get unlucky with the 5s and 6s.
But the real problem is that, due to various contrivances entirely beyond your control, it just so happens that if you roll the die a second time, you will be plagued by frogs, and (trust me on this) you really do not want to be plagued by frogs.
So you absolutely have to do it in one (1) roll. Good luck.
( hint and potential spoilage... )
