The Tic Tac challenge

[LiquidEyes]

Earlier I bought a box of Tic Tacs (Lime & Orange flavour, far and away the best!)

 

The first three Tic Tacs that came out of the box were orange. The next three were green. The next three were orange... and so on. My luck ran out after 15 Tic Tacs. I.e. the sequence was "OOO GGG OOO GGG OOO". What are the chances of that happening?

 

Say, for the sake of argument, there were 16 of each colour in my new box of Tic Tacs. I've worked out what I think the probability is, I want to see if anyone else gets the same answer. Here's a clue, I reckon it's in the league of 1 in 30,000.

 

I wish I'd bought a lottery ticket instead of a box of Tic Tacs.

 

Joking aside, I'm not reading too much into it. Obviously there a lot of other patterns that I would have considered "coincidental", such as if I had had 3 greens first, and so on. Also, saying that the greens and oranges were in equal proportions is a big simplification. But even so, I reckon it was still a pretty huge coincidence (and it's a fun exercise in statistics).

 

(Maybe I should get out more...?)

[Alex]

For an anti fun campaigner, you sure do have a lot of fun!

[Louise]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ May 14 2004, 12:29)

(Maybe I should get out more...?)

[Alex]

So has anyone cracked this yet?

[Tony P]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ May 14 2004, 12:29)

Earlier I bought a box of Tic Tacs (Lime & Orange flavour, far and away the best!) The first three Tic Tacs that came out of the box were orange. The next three were green. The next three were orange... and so on. My luck ran out after 15 Tic Tacs. I.e. the sequence was "OOO GGG OOO GGG OOO". What are the chances of that happening? Say, for the sake of argument, there were 16 of each colour in my new box of Tic Tacs. I've worked out what I think the probability is, I want to see if anyone else gets the same answer. Here's a clue, I reckon it's in the league of 1 in 30,000. I wish I'd bought a lottery ticket instead of a box of Tic Tacs. Joking aside, I'm not reading too much into it. Obviously there a lot of other patterns that I would have considered "coincidental", such as if I had had 3 greens first, and so on. Also, saying that the greens and oranges were in equal proportions is a big simplification. But even so, I reckon it was still a pretty huge coincidence (and it's a fun exercise in statistics). (Maybe I should get out more...?)

Lime & Orange Tic Tacs.......... you really do know how to have fun don't ya mate

[Pepsi]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ May 14 2004, 12:29)

Earlier I bought a box of Tic Tacs (Lime & Orange flavour, far and away the best!) The first three Tic Tacs that came out of the box were orange. The next three were green. The next three were orange... and so on. My luck ran out after 15 Tic Tacs. I.e. the sequence was "OOO GGG OOO GGG OOO". What are the chances of that happening? Say, for the sake of argument, there were 16 of each colour in my new box of Tic Tacs. I've worked out what I think the probability is, I want to see if anyone else gets the same answer. Here's a clue, I reckon it's in the league of 1 in 30,000. I wish I'd bought a lottery ticket instead of a box of Tic Tacs. Joking aside, I'm not reading too much into it. Obviously there a lot of other patterns that I would have considered "coincidental", such as if I had had 3 greens first, and so on. Also, saying that the greens and oranges were in equal proportions is a big simplification. But even so, I reckon it was still a pretty huge coincidence (and it's a fun exercise in statistics). (Maybe I should get out more...?)

Thats so weird!!

 

You know the same kinda thing happen to me the other day only I was eating mint tic tacs not the lime and orange ones.

[Alex]

Wow. Shame you didn't have a camara to hand to catch that amazing moment.

[Pepsi]

I had 3 mints come out and they were all the same colour, and then next time 3 more mints came out and they were all the same colour too. By the time this had happened 16 times I was nearly weeing my pants with excitement. It all came to a terrible end though when I tripped over a poddle.

[Alex]

So you will never know how many more would have come out in perfect colourless order. Damned Poodles!!

[Guest Kether]

That's easy.

[Guest Jay]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ May 14 2004, 12:29)

Bla Bla Bla

 

unless you know how tic tacs (plc) put the product in the box you cannmot really comment on how randon or coincidental it is.

 

maybe its designed like that.

 

you need to research something like this before you go throwing comments around like that sonny.

[Guest Kether]

QUOTE (Jay @ May 14 2004, 15:26)

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ May 14 2004, 12:29) Bla Bla Bla   unless you know how tic tacs (plc) put the product in the box you cannmot really comment on how randon or coincidental it is.   maybe its designed like that.   you need to research something like this before you go throwing comments around like that sonny. What are you on about?

[Guest Jay]

 

fair comment.

i have been on the bevvys.

 

my point is basically the following;

 

if we do not know how the tic tacs are put in the box, how can we say how probable any combination of tic tacs leaving the pack are??

 

if they are put in in a standard way (fuck knows what) then some combinations may be more probable & therefore not so random/lucky.

 

comprende

[Guest Kether]

QUOTE (Jay @ May 14 2004, 15:32)

fair comment. i have been on the bevvys. my point is basically the following; if we do not know how the tic tacs are put in the box, how can we say how probable any combination of tic tacs leaving the pack are?? if they are put in in a standard way (fuck knows what) then some combinations may be more probable & therefore not so random/lucky. comprende

It doesn't matter how they're put in the box. All that matters is how many are in the box at the time that you're considering the probablity, as clearly stated in the question when he said how many tic tacs were in a box.

 

If you were to be so facecious to want to know the probability of it happening to any box of tic tacs you'd have to work out the average number and ratio of orange/green tic tacs from the production methods. But to be fair, that's fucking gay.

[Guest Jay]

 

but valid.

 

in a homosexual way