How many CD's

[MarkyP05]

You have the task of guessing the amount of CD's a colleague has at home. They give you some help by confirming its between 325 and 450. Whats the likely number or range of numbers that the answer could be? Would it been 388 i.e. half way. Or is it more likely to be more or less.

[BigDave44]

Intuitively a graph of number of people with a given quantity against quantity would be erratic on the very low numbers (say less than 10), and then settle into a steady downward slope towards zero.

The quantities in the question are highish for the average person, so a good guess would be about 10 less than the mean - say 378.

Not very scientific, but I hope it helps.

BTW if it was my house then it would be at least 10 times those figures - and that's not counting vinyl albums!!

[dr b]

If all you know is that you're trying to guess a number between 325 and 450, then every number is equally likely and any guess is as good as any other.

But, is this an actual bet? Is something important (lunch, or public humiliation) riding on the outcome? then if I was your colleague and I had 325 CDs I'd give you the 325-450 range, knowing that most people would guess the middle number. But you'd know that, and guess something far away from the midpoint.. But he'd know that, and.....

...at this point you'd want to consult a game theory text.