A nice dice problem- Part I
Computational Complexity 2024-01-07
In this blog I pose a dice problem. The problem is NOT mine and the answer is KNOWN. However, I DO NOT think its well known, and I DO think it's interesting. My next post will have the answer.
PROBLEM:
A 6-sided fair die is a 6-tuple of positive natural numbers. (NOTE- POSITIVE NATURAL NUMBERS SO YOU CANNOT USE ZERO. I am emphasizing this since some answers given used 0.)
The standard 6-sided die is (1,2,3,4,5,6).
Do there exist two 6-sided dice \(a_1,\ldots,a_6\) and \(b_1,\ldots,b_6\) (the numbers need not be distinct) such that
a) The dice are NOT standard
b) When you roll the two dice you get THE SAME probabilities of sums as rolling two standard dice (we are assuming the dice are fair so the prob of any side is 1/6, though if a die has two faces with 4 pips on them, then of course the prob will of getting a 4 will be 1/3). So, for example, the probability of getting a sum of 2 is 1/12, the probability of getting a sum of 7 is 1/6.
A few pips for now:
a) Try to get a method to solve it for two d-sided dice. Or other generalization.
b) You may post the answer or whatever thoughts on the problem you want; however, if you want to solve it without any hints, don't look at the comments.
c) I do not know how hard this problem is to solve since I read the solution before really trying to solve it. I do not know how hard it is to find the answer online since I found the paper at random.
d) I think the problem is not well known. I could be wrong. Leave comments if you've heard of it or not heard of it or whatever, to comment on that point. Note that well known is not a well defined term.