At a family party, a grandfather, a grandmother, two fathers, two mothers, four children, three grandchildren, one brother, two sisters, two sons, two daughters, one father-in-law, one mother-in-law, and one daughter-in-law, sit at a table. What is the fewest number of chairs required to seat all of them? Each had his/her own chair.
Inspired by BMAD's puzzle, consider choosing four random numbers on [0,1].
If you sort them lowest to highest, what is the expected value of the third number?
The 400 metre dash sprinting event will be held at a field track with 5 lanes. 25 athletes will be participating in total, of which, obviously, only 5 can be running together at a time. Define the minimum number of dashes required to determine the 3 fastest athlets of all, so that they are awarded the gold, silver and bronze medal. Which athletes will be running in each dash?
We assume that each athlete performs exactly the same in each dash. The results of the event will be determined by the relative classification of the athletes and not by their exact times. We only need to determine the 3 fastest athletes and not to follow the exact procedure which usually is followed at such events. (Obviously we cannot use a stopwatch).