Unfair Coin Quiz Puzzle


This puzzle was first posed by John von Neumann, and it is still quite tricky to work out.

You have a coin that is biased so that the probability of a head is not the same as the probability of a tail. The probabilities of each are fixed but you don't know the probabilities.

How can you use this coin to produce an outcome where both alternatives have a 50% probability?

The solution should work irrespective of the degree of bias in the coin, although clearly not if it lands heads 100% of the time!

As usual you can post the answers as a comment on this website, reply to the post on Facebook, or retweet or reply on Twitter @quizmastershop.

Answer at 9.00 on Monday

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