I was standing by a railing, watching a ship a sailing. What is the Captain’s name. If you don’t know his name, It’s you to blame. What is the Captain’s name.
Thanks to Sherry for submitting this one. Here’s the backstory of the riddle.
“One of my favorites I remember as a child from my father, he always said it was a Newfoundland riddle. I don’t know where it may have originated. This is usually spoken. Ensure you say it as a statement and not a question.”
Pronounced as one letter, And written with three, Two letters there are, And two only in me. I’m double, I’m single, I’m black, blue, and gray, I’m read from both ends, And the same either way.
Eye. It’s pronounced like the letter ‘i’, but written with three letters. There are only two letters used (‘e’ and ‘y’). The eye is double with two ‘e’s and represents a single eye. The eye is made up of various colors, some of which are black, blue and gray. And lastly, the eye is a palindrome, spelled the same forward and backward.
You’re waiting to board your flight at the airport with 99 other passengers, each with an assigned seat. All but one of the passengers will gladly sit in their designated seat. The only exception is Randall, a scoundrel who refuses to follow the rules. When he boards, he will choose a random, unoccupied seat.
If a rule-following passenger finds someone in their spot, they will choose another one at a random from the remaining unoccupied seats.
What is the probability that the last person to board the plane will sit in their proper seat?
The randomness stops as soon as someone else sits in Randall’s assigned seat. The chances of this happening range from 1 out of 99 to 1 out of 1 (when only one seat remains).
Thus, the probability of the last person sitting in their own seat can be calculated as 1/99 plus the sum of 2 to 98 of the formula 1 / n × (n + 1), which works out to 0.5, or 50%.
So there’s a 50% chance the last passenger will sit in their own seat thanks to Randall for screwing up order and procedure when boarding an aircraft.
Mrs. Shine was having a rough day and wanted a break. So she asked her class to calculate the sum of the first 50 odd numbers. In a few moments, Winifred was at her desk with the correct answer of 2,500. Stunned, Mrs. Shine figured she must have gotten lucky, and sent precocious Winifred back to her seat with the task of finding the sum of the first 75 odd numbers. Again, Winifred returned in seconds with the correct answer (5,625).