in your sock drawer, you have 12 blue socks and 12 yellow socks. It is dark in the morning when you were getting dressed, and you can’t see the color of the socks. How many socks must you pick to absolutely guarantee that you have a pair of blue socks to wear?

A.) 14
B.) 24
C.) 4
D.) 3
E.) 2

That will happen at 12 + 1 = 13 draws (pair needs 2 blue, and the worst will happen that in initial trials, the yellow socks are not letting the pair get completed, which means at max 1 blue sock and rest 12 socks are drawn, which will get at max 13 draws).

But now any more sock pulled will have to be falling into the blue color category we already have. (this is exactly the pigeonhole principle's use).

After 13 times, you will start getting blue socks.

Since you need a pair of blue socks, you need to pull out socks 1 more time.

So total 14 pulls were required if the conditions were like resisting us at maximum.

In most of the cases, we might not need those 14 pulls, but 14 pulls is the minimum number that will assure you that the socks pulled have a blue pair of socks.

If the conditions are not worst, we would be lucky and that

Thus, the smallest number of socks to pull out to be assured that we get a blue pair of socks is 14. (Option A is correct).

Learn more about pigeonhole principle and socks pulling here:

https://brainly.com/question/8505936

in your sock drawer, you have 12 blue socks and 12 yellow socks. It is dark in the morning when you were getting dressed, and you can’t see the color of the socks. How many socks must you pick to absolutely guarantee that you have a pair of blue socks to wear? A.) 14 B.) 24 C.) 4 D.) 3 E.) 2

Answer :

What is pigeonhole principle?

Other Questions

in your sock drawer, you have 12 blue socks and 12 yellow socks. It is dark in the morning when you were getting dressed, and you can’t see the color of the socks. How many socks must you pick to absolutely guarantee that you have a pair of blue socks to wear?

A.) 14
B.) 24
C.) 4
D.) 3
E.) 2