Life is a Test: A Series of Pony Logic Puzzles

by Brony_of_Brody

The Answer 15

Of course you shouldn't.

it sounds like a 90% success rate from the detector is reliable enough for all purposes, but you forget: the odds of a false reading (10%) is higher than you finding a rock that genuinely has inexplicablyvalumium (1%).

Imagine you searched 1000 rocks. A 1% pull-rate of inexplicablyvalumium means only 10 rocks are expected to have it. As for the other 990, with the detector giving off a false reading 10% of the time, 99 of them can be expected to set it off. That's a total of 109 rocks, and the one in Maud's cart at the moment could be any one of them.

With the odds of that rock having inexplicablyvalumium being 10/109, the odds are seriously stacked against you. There's no real sense in wasting 20,000 bits on what most of the time will be a worthless lump of rock.

Still, the fact Maud tried to pull a fast one on you...she must be a more shrewd businesspony than anypony realised.

"Heh. Didn't think I'd catch you with that. I see why Pinkie thinks so highly of you now."

Comments

[Coyotek4]

[Andy Ray]

Well, my calculations turned out to be correct, but still. It's better to lose less, and it was either 100 000 or 20 000. If we had bought the rock for 100 000 (without taking Maud's offer), we would have lost much more, than by accepting her deal.

Then again... If it was up to us to pay either of the amount or not to buy it at all... then yes, we should not have accepted .