🚀 go-pugleaf

A contest being run by a French computer magazine for their 100th
issue includes the following tie breaking question. (The rest of the
questions are fairly easy, so the tie breaking question is needed to
win a prize.)

"Pick a number from 1 to 1,000,000,000. 
Your number should be as close as possibly to four-fifthes of the
average of the numbers chosen by all of the participants."

How would you play this game? (Send me email, I'll post a summary, and
indicate which of you would have won.)

Theoretically, one could reason as follows.
The numbers 800,000,001 to 1,000,000,000 are losers, so no one will
choose them. 
But in that case, the numbers 640,000,001 to 800,000,000 are also
losers and no one will choose them either.
Similarly, 512,000,001 to 640,000,000 are losers....
etc...

Such reasoning eliminates ALL numbers except 1 and 2.

HOWEVER, if even one person refuses to reason in this way, then the
average is NOWHERE near 1 or 2.


-- 

Yours, Daniel Loeb				loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr
HOME 	150, cours Victor-Hugo; Appt D45; 33000 Bordeaux France
WORK	LABRI; Universite de Bordeaux I; 33405 Talence Cedex France