• Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    That’s a great idea let me know how it turns out. If you randomly pick the genders and randomly pick who opens the door, I think it will be 50-50. With these kinds of things they can get pretty tricky. Just because an explanation seems to make sense doesn’t mean it’s right so I’m curious!

    • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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      11 months ago

      I put it together. Here’s the code I wrote in Python.

      import random
      
      genders = ['boy', 'girl']
      
      def run():
          other_child_girls = 0
          for i in range(10000):
              other_child = get_other_child()
              if other_child == 'girl':
                  other_child_girls += 1
          print(other_child_girls)
      
      def get_other_child():
          children = random.choices(genders, k=2)
          first_child_index = random.randint(0, 1)
          first_child = children[first_child_index]
          if first_child == 'boy':
              other_child_index = (first_child_index + 1) % 2
              return children[other_child_index]
          # Recursively repeat this call until the child at the door is a boy
          # (i.e., discard any cases where the child at the door is a girl)
          return get_other_child()
      
      if __name__ == '__main__':
          run()
      

      And it turns out you were right. I ran it a few times and got answers ranging from 4942 to 5087, i.e., clustered around 50%.