Son whose name starts with 'M'

Alice and Bob are chatting about their families.

Alice says, "I have two children."

Bob asks, "Do you have a son whose name starts with the letter 'M'?"

Alice replies, "Yes!"

Given that Alice was truthful, and assuming that a child's name will start with any given letter with probability 1/26 and that a child will be a boy with probability 1/2, what is the probability that Alice has two sons?

When your answer is in the form p q \frac{p}{q} for positive, coprime integers p p and q q , input p + q p+q .

This is based off a well-known problem posed by Gary Foshee.


The answer is 154.

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2 solutions

Sean Sullivan
Jul 19, 2015

We are asked to find P ( 2 sons P(\textrm{2 sons } | son with letter M ) \textrm{ son with letter M}) . Using Bayes theorem:

P ( 2 sons P(\textrm{2 sons } | son with letter M ) = P ( son with letter M 2 sons ) P ( 2 sons ) P ( son with letter M ) \textrm{ son with letter M})=\frac{P(\textrm{son with letter M}|\textrm{2 sons})P(\textrm{2 sons})}{P(\textrm{son with letter M})}

We have P ( son with letter M P(\textrm{son with letter M} | 2 sons ) = 2 26 ( 1 26 ) 2 = 51 2 6 2 \textrm{2 sons})=\frac{2}{26}-(\frac{1}{26})^{2}=\frac{51}{26^{2}}

P ( 2 sons ) = 1 2 2 = 1 4 P(\textrm{2 sons})=\frac{1}{2}^{2}=\frac{1}{4}

and P ( son with letter M ) = 2 52 ( 1 52 ) 2 = 103 5 2 2 P(\textrm{son with letter M})=\frac{2}{52}-(\frac{1}{52})^{2}=\frac{103}{52^{2}}

Plugging all this in, we obtain P ( 2 sons P(\textrm{2 sons } | son with letter M ) = ( 51 2 6 2 ) ( 1 4 ) 103 5 2 2 = 51 103 \textrm{ son with letter M})=\frac{(\frac{51}{26^{2}})(\frac{1}{4})}{\frac{103}{52^{2}}}=\frac{51}{103}

Therefore the answer is 51 + 103 = 154 51+103=\boxed{154}

Very efficient! :)

Maggie Miller - 5 years, 11 months ago
Maggie Miller
Jul 17, 2015

Consider the number of ways Alice can have two children whose names start with given letters.

If Alice has an older son and a younger daughter, the son's name must start with 'M' while the daughter's name might start with anything. Thus, there are 26 ways that Alice could have an older son and a younger daughter.

If Alice has an younger son and an older daughter, the son's name must start with 'M' while the daughter's name might start with anything. Thus, there are 26 ways that Alice could have a younger son and an older daughter.

If Alice has two sons, then there are 25 ways that the older son's name starts with 'M' and the younger's does not, 25 ways that the younger son's name starts with 'M' and the older's does not, and just 1 way for them both to have names that start with 'M'. Thus, there are 51 ways that Alice could have two sons.

Finally, Alice cannot have two daughters.

Therefore, the probability that Alice has two sons is 51 26 + 26 + 51 = 51 103 \frac{51}{26+26+51}=\frac{51}{103} , so the answer is 154 \boxed{154} .

I'm familiar with the original problem and that you have to include Tuesday into the working even though it doesn't seem like it should and still ignored that and did it wrong lol. You post some tough logic questions consistently! Thank you for that!

michael bye - 5 years, 10 months ago

I think it is still a half as you don't know which sons name starts with M if they are both sons. Therefore you can consider the sons in the same way as the daughters, If the older sons name starts with M the younger sons name can start with any of the 26 letter and vice versa. Even in this scenario where it is stated names are evenly distributed between the letters it does not state or imply any link to gender. Therefore it remains true one of the children is male so there is a 50:50 chance the other is male or female.

Aidan Boxall - 5 years, 11 months ago

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If it helps, here's a nice proof that if Alice has two children, and has a son born on a Tuesday, then the probability of her having two sons is 13 27 \frac{13}{27} .

Maggie Miller - 5 years, 11 months ago

Edit, sorry: it seems the confusion is here: when the older son's name starts with 'M', the younger son's name can start with anything and vice versa, but you can't count the case where they both start with 'M' twice!

Maggie Miller - 5 years, 11 months ago

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The here's a nice a proof link finally convinced me. That genuinely made me smile thank you. This is why I love maths and logic. I hate how counter-intuitive the answer is and how difficult it is to accept but I can't argue with pure logic and I appreciate you spending the time to defend your correct answer.

Aidan Boxall - 5 years, 11 months ago

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@Aidan Boxall Don't worry about it - I saw the Tuesday problem in a lecture about surprising probabilities and was also surprised! :)

Maggie Miller - 5 years, 11 months ago

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@Maggie Miller Are you doing/have done a maths degree then? I'm doing a physics degree but have always been slightly admiring/ envious of the mathematicians. I considered doing maths because its so beautiful but feared I may go mad. I took physics because its basically applying maths to the real world although I'll concede its probably not as pretty as some of the things you get to study during a maths degree.

Aidan Boxall - 5 years, 11 months ago

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@Aidan Boxall Yes - I actually just graduated from The University of Texas with a BS in mathematics. I'm starting at a Ph.D. program in a few months.

There's quite a bit of hard math in physics, though! And certainly surprising results (like all of quantum, haha). I started out as a double major in math/physics but dropped physics because I'm really not very good at applying math to the real world. :P

Maggie Miller - 5 years, 11 months ago

In your question, you asked for the probability of Alice having two sons, which is a bit ambiguous. If that's the case, then the answer is 5. Also, are you asking for one boy with M or at least one boy? The answers would be 726 and 727, respectively.

Anthony Pham - 5 years, 11 months ago

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I don't think it's ambiguous - she has two children, so the probablity that they are both boys is well-defined. She agrees that she has a son whose name starts with 'M', so she might have two (Just as if I had two dogs and someone asked me if I had a dog, I might say yes). I am sorry if this was confusing, though.

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers?

The probability that Alice has two sons whose names start with 'M' is 1 103 \frac{1}{103} . The probability that Alice has two sons and exactly one has a name starting with 'M' is 50 103 \frac{50}{103} .

Maggie Miller - 5 years, 11 months ago

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