Reference no: EM131572348

Question: We consider the two children problem, introduced in 1959 by Martin Garnder is his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. A version of the puzzle asks: "We meet Mr. Smith as he is walking down the street with a young child whom he introduces as his son. He also tells us that he has two children. What is the probability that his other child is a son?" We will show that this puzzle is ambiguous, leading to a paradox, by showing that there are two reasonable answers to this problem and we will describe how to make the puzzle unambiguous

a) Solve this puzzle in two different ways. First, answer the problem by considering the probability of the gender of the second child. Then, determine the probability differently, by considering the four different possibilities for a family of two children.

b) Show that the answer to the puzzle becomes unambiguous if we also know that Mr. Smith chose his walking companion at random from his two children.

c) Another variation of this puzzle asks "When we meet Mr. Smith, he tells us that he has two children and at least one is a son. What is the probability that his other child is a son?" Solve this variation of the puzzle, explaining why it is unambiguous.