prisoner & marble riddle
A prisoner fate will be determined by a game. there are two jars, one with 100 white marbles, and one with 100 black marbles. at this point, prisoner is allowed to redistribute the marbles however he wish e.g. swap a black marble with a white marble, etc. the only requirement is that after prisoner is done with the redistribution, every marble must be in one of the two jars. Afterwards, both jars will be shaken up, and prisoner will be blindfolded and presented with one of the jars at random. then he pick one marble out of the jar given to him. if the marble prisoner pull out is white, prisoner live; if black, prisoner die. how should prisoner redistribute the marbles to maximise the probability that he live; what is this maximum probability (roughly)?
Pour all of the marbles into one jar, then take one white marble from that jar and place it into the empty jar. This gives them a 2/3 chance of living. First a 50/50 (One guaranteed salvation) followed by a 49/50. This is the optimal chance you can have in this situation.
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