Culture
Guardian Puzzles Feature Probability and Statistical Deception Challenges
July 13, 2026 at 06:15 PM
Coverage
4 reports · over 346 hours
TGThe Guardian
Did you solve it? This TV show is flipping brilliant!
(opens the publisher’s site)
TGThe Guardian
Can you solve it? This TV show is flipping brilliant!
(opens the publisher’s site)
TGThe Guardian
Did you solve it? Dotty data and silly sentences
(opens the publisher’s site)
TGThe Guardian
Can you solve it? Dotty data and silly sentences
(opens the publisher’s site)The newspaper's puzzle column published a coin-flip game show problem and a set of puzzles about data deception on consecutive weeks.
- On July 6, The Guardian published a puzzle in which two contestants flip coins and must guess each other's result, with a solution that raises the winning probability from 25% to 50%.
- The puzzle was contributed by Henk Tijms, emeritus professor of operations research at VU Amsterdam.
- On June 22, the column featured a puzzle illustrating Simpson's paradox, where two separate polls showed a policy more popular among men but less popular overall when combined.
- A reader competition for "Anguish Languish" sentences was won by Edward Barrett for a version of "Mary had a little lamb."