"Lat705" wrote in message
...
To tell whether a person is an engineer, or a mathematics/ Operations
Reasearch
type, give them the following problem:

A box contained 50 red socks and 50 green socks. You withdrew two socks;
one
green and one red. What is the probability of having a matching pair on
the
next withdrawal?
it's both a trick question (see slenon's response), and impossible to
answer uncategorically (see gula's response). just as one example: if you
can see the interior of the box, even if there is a requirement to withdraw
*two* new socks, a cogent "picker" will follow his eyes and select another
matched pair, and the answer is clearly 100%. if you can't see inside the
box, and the socks are randomly placed, then it becomes a purely
mathematical question to be easily solved by the law of probabilities.

i reckon.

wayno