Blue
This is a great teaser from our friend Colm Mulcahy Maths Professor at Spelman College Atlanta. Georgia.
"There are three boxes containing apples, bananas and a combination;
however, somebody has mixed up all the labels and none is labelled
correctly. Is it possible by only taking out one piece of friut to
determine the correct labels?"
At first it seems that there isnt enough information. For instance if you pick a banana out of the box marked apple, you dont know whether that box contains bananas or apples and banana combination. The same goes if you pick an apple out of the banana box - it could be apple or combination.
There is only one way of being sure of getting it:
Solution:
Take a piece of fruit out of the box marked combination (no peeking).
Whatever you have: an apple or banana, then that is what the box should say (as it cant be a combination, remember all boxes are
mis-labelled). Switch the correct label for the combination label. And then switch the combination label and the third label`(as the third
label is also incorrect).
If this doesn't make sense to you, do what every mathematician would do - take a pen and paper and look at the different options and outcomes !
