Can You Asnwer This Brainteaser?

[jlc2]

Can you please complete this 2 minute brainteaser. It is interesting. I need 500 responses for my college thesis! Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Here is the link:

https://brown.us2.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8Dkw16aWN9ergMd

Thanks,
Jacob

[Gizmonster]

Well, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a whirl.
Just one question to everyone who took part - did everyone bother working out the odds of survival if you spun or not ??
Don't post the answer on here, just post how you reached your decision, as other people who haven't taken part may read it .............
I'm just wondering if some people just went on "gut instinct" ..........

[roger]

6 to 1 if you spin, 5 to 1 if you don't, no score draw if you don't fire

[gen2]

Jacob,
The more you distribute this through social sites, the greater the chance that people will start discussing it. That will surely destroy the accuracy of any finding your survey may produce.

. . . Unless your survey is nothing to do with the question, but more about how people react to it socially in the threads.

Good luck.

[gen2]

There; even though Gizmo asked not to post the odds, someone already has.

But that answer suggests that we may not all have been given the same question to answer - Now there's a thought!

[Baldric]

No more than one hour

Go away

[Peter Pedant]

oh come on
give him or her a break

altho I have to say my brain wasnt teased much

Ihope he tells us the results.....

[rojash]

"6 to 1 if you spin, 5 to 1 if you don't, "
Probably better than 6:1 if you spin it. It will biased towards stopping with the heaviest chamber at the bottom.

[factor-fiction]

You are right Gizmonster. I was assuming it couldn't spin to the same one because that would make the answer too obvious but of course it wouldn't be possible to stop that happening

[vascop]

I don't see how you get those probabilities. If you pick up a a six-shooter loaded with 2 bullets and you have no idea in which positions they are loaded, then the odds must be......?

[factor-fiction]

Hi vascop. I don't really understand how it works. If you spin there is a 1 in 6 chance of getting a bullet. But I'm not sure how you don't spin- does it just move to the next chamber, because if not you'd just choose the same chamber as the last person. If it does move on then there is a 1 in 5 chance
given that the previous chamber was empty.
I'd need clarification of the problem before I'd answer

[sandyRoe]

Surveys like this can have unintended consequences. A chap shot himself, somewhere in Scotland I think, playing Russian Roulette last week.
Could he have seen this survey and have been doing a bit of empirical research?

[factor-fiction]

Oh, were there 2 bullets?. Anyway, the issues are still the same. I think I'd just shoot the other person on my turn

[sandyRoe]

That's how the cheats played the game in The Deerhunter ^

[vascop]

Factor -yes there are 2 bullets so that means a 1 in 3 chance of killing yourself. But according to me if your friend fired a blank then the chances must be 1 in 4, so it's better not to spin.
I think it's best to ignore the weight of the bullets and assume the spin is done with the gun pointing vertically upwards or downwards.

[factor-fiction]

Maybe I need to re-read the exact problem but from your description of it there is a 2/6 chance of selecting a bullet from a random spin, but if you choose to pick a chamber that's different from the known empty one, you have a 2 in 5 chance of picking a bullet don't you, so i don't know where the 1/4 comes from? Or don't we know whether the first person survived? Anyway, I don't understand how the chamber moves on if you don't spin

[sandyRoe]

Isn't it better to spin the chamber? If you do so you bring the chances of shooting yourself back to 2-1.
If you don't spin there are 2 loader chambers and 3 empty. The one that your opponent clicked on is no longer a possibility. You've reduced the chances of survival.

[Gizmonster]

I asked people not to post the answer, but seeing how it's been done, I might as well join in ....
...... I agree with Vascop, 3 in 4 chance of survivial if you don't spin; 2 in 3 chance of survival if you spin, so of course you don't spin ..... this is assuming that when you spin the gun, there's an equal chance of any chamber (empty or loaded) landing at the "fire position".

Anyone care to agree/disagree ????

[Gizmonster]

Just to clarify - the first person has pulled the trigger and "click", no bullet has been fired - it's an empty chamber. The barrel then rotates to the next chamber along ............

[factor-fiction]

What happens to the chamber after someone fires a blank? Does it just move onto the next chamber?

[factor-fiction]

Thanks Gizmonster- yours wasn't there when I started typing