Mislabeled Presents

stahrwe · Sat Dec 25, 2010 8:03 am

I was at a gift exchange last night. We were supposed to bring a gift for a girl, a boy, or a baby. One family brought three gifts, one in each category but they were sure they had mislabeled all three gifts.

QUESTION: How many of the mislabled packages must be opened in order to correctly distribute the three gifts?

Merry Christmas

Edit: sorry about the type-o in the title,

DWill · Sat Dec 25, 2010 10:47 am


	stahrwe wrote: I was at a gift exchange last night. We were supposed to bring a gift for a girl, a boy, or a baby. One family brought three gifts, one in each category but they were sure they had mislabeled all three gifts. QUESTION: How many of the mislabled packages must be opened in order to correctly distribute the three gifts? Merry Christmas Edit: sorry about the type-o in the title,

Ow, it's Christmas and I don't feel like thinking. About your mistake in the title, you know I'm always eager to point out your supposed mistakes, but you haven't misspelled "labeled" there. Either one "l" or two is acceptable. You have misspelled it in the body of your post, though! Happy Christmas.

Interbane · Sat Dec 25, 2010 1:14 pm

2/3 must be opened.

Or 1/3 and monkey stomp the other two. Whichever one squeals is the puppy meant for the boy. Hmm, not very christmassy. Sorry, Merry Xmas all!!!

I got a 4 cycle ryobi hedge trimmer/weed wacker.

stahrwe · Sat Dec 25, 2010 4:00 pm


	Interbane wrote: 2/3 must be opened. Or 1/3 and monkey stomp the other two. Whichever one squeals is the puppy meant for the boy. Hmm, not very christmassy. Sorry, Merry Xmas all!!! I got a 4 cycle ryobi hedge trimmer/weed wacker.

Hope that was a good gift for you.

Your solution is incorrect.

Suzanne · Sat Dec 25, 2010 11:48 pm

I gave myself an early present. I forgot everything I never wanted to know about stats a few months ago.

Merry Christmas!

stahrwe · Sun Dec 26, 2010 9:23 pm


	Suzanne wrote: I gave myself an early present. I forgot everything I never wanted to know about stats a few months ago. Merry Christmas!

no one wants to play?

Hint: it is a dgrees of freedom problem in logic.

Anyone out there into logic?

JadenKnight · Mon Dec 27, 2010 1:56 am

I'm not very good at this sort of thing..So i'm sure i'm wrong but from my logic, I would say logically you open 2 gifts and that lets you know what the third is so you just have to rewrap two. Like I said tho i'm crummy at these things and i'm sure there is something i'm missing.

stahrwe · Mon Dec 27, 2010 10:56 am


	JadenKnight wrote: I'm not very good at this sort of thing..So i'm sure i'm wrong but from my logic, I would say logically you open 2 gifts and that lets you know what the third is so you just have to rewrap two. Like I said tho i'm crummy at these things and i'm sure there is something i'm missing.

Thanks for the post and trying.
I am declaring you the winner for the closest answer.

The answer is actually one:

Labeled Boy----Labeled Girl----Labeled Baby
Girl---------------Boy------------Girl
Baby-------------Baby-----------Boy

The present labeled Boy must be either for a girl or Baby
The present labeled Girl must be either for a Boy or Baby
The present labeled Baby must be either for a Boy or Girl

Let's open the present labeled for the Boy
It contains a present for a Baby
That means that the present labeled Girl must contain a present for a Boy because the Baby present in out of play, and
The present labeled Baby must contain a present for a girl.

or, suppose

Let's open the package labeled Girl.
It contains a present for a Boy
That means that the present labeled Baby has to be for a girl, and
The present labeled for the Boy must be the Baby

Mathematically, the degrees of freedom are always one less then the remaining choices. Therefore, with 3 choices to start we have only 2 degress of freedom so when one is eliminated and we have only 2 choices we have only 1 degree of freedom and the answer falls out.

JadenKnight · Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:55 pm

lol well i'm glad to be declaired winner, although I really don't believe i'm all that close. As I suspected it was much more complicated then it seemed.

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