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Fixing the Odds
You have two bags, four red balls and four white balls. You must put all the balls in the bags although you are allowed to have one bag empty. How should you distribute the balls between the two bags so as to make the probability of choosing a red ball as small as possible and what will the probability be in that case?
Scratch Cards
To win on a scratch card you have to uncover three numbers that add up to more than fifteen. What is the probability of winning a prize?
Escalator
At Holborn underground station there is a very long escalator. Two people are in a hurry and so climb the escalator as it is moving upwards, thus adding their speed to that of the moving steps. ... How many steps are there on the escalator?
Age 14 to 16
Challenge Level
Chris is swimming in a lake, 50m from the shore.
Her family are 100m along the shore.
She'd like to get back to her family as quickly as possible. If she can swim at 3 m/sec and run at 7m/sec, how far along the shore should she land in order to get back as quickly as possible?
NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.