Because MATH, that's why.

[theweaselking]

You roll two fair 6-sided dice.

One of them is a 6.

What are the odds that the other is also a six?

[Poll #1770498]

Comments

[waryoptimism.livejournal.com]

As the question says, "What are the odds that the other die is also a six?"

So it's asking what the probability of getting (6,6) on two dice is; i.e. 1/36.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[waryoptimism.livejournal.com]

Ah, wait, it's the probability of 6 on 1 given 6 on 2. So P(6 on 1 and 6 on 2)/P(6 on 2), i.e.(1/6*1/6)/(1/6) or 1/6.

That better?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

No. It's the probability of at least one 6 on two dice.

[waryoptimism.livejournal.com]

Where A = a 6 on dice 1, and B = a 6 on dice 2, isn't the question the probability of B given A? That seems to be how it's worded.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You've assumed that A must be a 6.

B could be a 6, and not A.

You're looking for A or B.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Argh. Urgh. Hrm. Yeah, I answered 1/36 but looking back at the semantics, I guess it'd be... one in eleven?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

How do you reach this conclusion?

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Basically first read it as "what are the chances you roll two sixes" and figured out how many different rolls you could get on two dice (36) and went from there. Then after looking on here, I realized that I didn't quite get all the subtleties of the question right, and went back and figured out how many of those possible rolls would have a 6 in them, which is 11. (Two variations each for 7-11, then one for 12).

[anivair.livejournal.com]

... because you've already rolled one six. Odds go up.