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Tag Archives: Test your intuition
Test Your Intuition (21): Auctions
You run a single-item sealed bid auction where you sell an old camera. There are three bidders and the value of the camera for each of them is described by a certain (known) random variable: With probability 0.9 the value … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Games, Test your intuition
Tagged Auctions, Roger Myerson, Test your intuition
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Test your Intuition/Knowledge: What was Lord Kelvin’s Main Mistake?
The age of the earth (Thanks to Yeshu Kolodny) We now know that the age of the earth is 4.54±1% Billion years. From Wikipedea: In 1862, the physicist William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin) of Glasgow published calculations that … Continue reading
Posted in Controversies and debates, Geology, Physics, Test your intuition
Tagged Earth, Geology, Lord Kelvin, Test your intuition
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Taking balls away: Oz’ Version
This post is based on a comment by Oz to our question about balls with two colors: “There is an interesting (and more difficult) variation I once heard but can’t recall where: You have a box with n red balls … Continue reading
Posted in Guest post, Probability, Test your intuition
Tagged Oz, Probability, Test your intuition
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Answer to test your intuition (18)
You have a box with n red balls and n blue balls. You take out balls one by one at random until left only with balls of the same color. How many balls will be left (as a function of n)? … Continue reading
Posted in Probability, Test your intuition
Tagged Itai Benjamini, Probability, random permutation, Ronen Eldan, Test your intuition
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Itai Ashlagi, Yashodhan Kanoria, and Jacob Leshno: What a Difference an Additional Man makes?
We are considering the stable marriage theorem. Suppose that there are n men and n women. If the preferences are random and men are proposing, what is the likely average women’s rank of their husbands, and what is the likely average … Continue reading
Test Your Intuition (19): The Advantage of the Proposers in the Stable Matching Algorithm
Stable mariage The Gale-Shapley stable matching theorem and the algorithm. GALE-SHAPLEY THEOREM Consider a society of n men and n women and suppose that every man [and every woman] have a preference (linear) relation on the women [men] he [she] knows. Then … Continue reading
Test Your Intuition (17): What does it Take to Win Tic-Tac-Toe
(A few more quantum posts are coming. But let’s have a quick break for games.) Tic Tac Toe is played since anciant times. For the common version, where the two players X and O take turns in marking the empty squares … Continue reading
Discrepancy, The Beck-Fiala Theorem, and the Answer to “Test Your Intuition (14)”
The Question Suppose that you want to send a message so that it will reach all vertices of the discrete -dimensional cube. At each time unit (or round) you can send the message to one vertex. When a vertex gets the … Continue reading
Test Your Intuition (14): A Discrete Transmission Problem
Recall that the -dimensional discrete cube is the set of all binary vectors ( vectors) of length n. We say that two binary vectors are adjacent if they differ in precisely one coordinate. (In other words, their Hamming distance is 1.) This … Continue reading
Test Your Intuition (13): How to Play a Biased “Matching Pennies” Game
Recall the game “matching pennies“. Player I has to chose between ’0′ or ’1′, player II has to chose between ’0′ and ’1′.No player knows what is the choice of the other player before making his choice. Player II pays … Continue reading
