[Math] Puzzle about 3 boxes with 2 balls inside (black or white) with mixed labels on them

puzzle

We have 3 boxes. In every one there are 2 balls. One of them has 2 black balls, second 2 white balls, third black and white ball.

On every box is a right plate(label): BB,WW,BW. Unfortunatelly somebody mixed the plates and now only NONE of the boxes has a right plate on it. You can draw only one random ball from selected box to decode what is in all the boxes. Which box would you choose?

My opininon: I have no clue, because:

  • if I choose box with a plate BB I only know that it is wrong plate if I draw white ball, but I can draw black ball and it still can be BW box.
  • if I choose box with a plate BW I will know nothing about righteousness of a plate on it

Best Answer

Now with the edit, this is solvable. Choose the BW tagged box. All boxes are wrongly tagged by definition. Pick a ball, if ball is black, then, this box is not WW for sure, hence it is BB. Now if the BB-tagged box were originally BW box, then the WW-tagged box would be rightly tagged, which would be a contradiction, hence, BB-tagged box is actually a WW box, and WW tagged box is actually a BW box.

Similarly, you can retag boxes if a white ball came out of BW box.

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