Can You Solve The Marriage Logic Problem? 80% Fail

Surveys have found 80 percent get this logic problem wrong. Alice is looking at Bob, and Bob is looking at Charlie. Alice is married; Charlie is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? Answer choices are A) Yes, B) No, and C) Cannot be determined. The video presents the correct answer.

The video also includes a second problem. A drawer has 10 black socks and 10 white socks. With your eyes closed, you pull 3 socks. Are you holding a matching pair of socks? A) Yes B)No C)Cannot be determined.

Sources
Sean Carroll blog post (2009)

Guardian puzzler (2016)

SingingBanana video (James Grime)

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[nickjeffery]

Bob could be the name of Schrodinger's cat, in which case he could be both married and unmarried at the same time...

[psaprojectsomethingawesome]

Everyone knows Bob is married and Alice is giving him a stare down for looking at Charlie.

[jg-]

Plot twist: Bob is quantum super positioned such that when we examine Alice, Bob is married, but when we examine Charlie, Bob is unmarried, this making the answer C.

[TheMarrt]

Even if i drew all socks out of my dresser i would not have a single matching pair...

[johncj]

Bob could be a horse... the problem doesn't state that Bob is a person, so the answer should be C

[Hsuperj]

I got so confused on the sock problem because my brain thought a matching pair was 1 white and 1 black sock lol

[stromboli]

Note that if Alice is looking at Bob, and Bob is looking at Charlie, and Charlie is looking at Dave, and Dave is looking at Eve, and Eve is... all the way to Zach.
And Alice is married and Zach is not, and all the people in between are undetermined, the answer is still Yes.

[icantplay]

80% fail the test because most of em don't care enough to put any brainpower to them.

[odinsteffes]

if people picked out the answer randomly, more people would get it right

[diornodiovanna]

"While you're thinking about this problem, I'm gonna give you more to think about" lmao

[bonbon__]

I got them both right... only one who thought it was easy?

[billbingham]

Actually, Bob was wearing the socks, but wouldn't let his wife know if they were matching, so she divorced him, making him unmarried.

[Ranggalih]

Basically Alice loves Bob secretly while Bob is gay. ┐(´д｀)┌

[upliftingcommunity]

When you presented the first problem, I was stumped! But when you presented the 2nd problem the answer was obvious, which consequently made the answer to the first problem obvious! What an EXCELLENT teaching method. I want to see if I can employ this in my own teaching.

[queensupit]

lesson learned. 80% of people including me don't bother wasting our last braincel to a riddle instead of watching Miraculous Ladybug eventhough were grandparents already.

[santiagociarma]

the real answer to the second problem is no, you are holding a pencil

[jacek_poplawski]

extremely easy, who is target audience now?

[themartian]

Are you holding a matching pair of socks?
Me: I don't know you didn't tell me to open my eyes

[MEE_]

For the third one, this was my thought process:
If you draw three of the same color socks, then you won't have a pair.
*Looks at the problem again*





*Questions thought processes and writes it down*

[DisapprovingShinji]

I didn't get the socks problem at first, because I thought it meant that with your eyes closed you literally draw a sock... like, a drawing, a painting XD
I can't believe I'm that stupid lol, sorry I'll just leave the internet and never come back