Puzzle: what's in the jars?

Question

Three jars: one contains red marbles, one contains black, and one contains a mixture of both, but we don't know which is which.

The jars are labeled Red, Black, and Mixed, but all of the labels are wrong.
You can remove one marble at a time from any jar.

What is the least amount of marbles you can remove from the jars to identify the contents and correctly label them?

No correct answers yet.

Firefoxy is the only one who seems to have read the question correctly but sadly is still wrong...

Answer 1

1 only
since the labels are wrong, first take out a marble from the "mixed jar" because it will be either black or red.
let's say the ball is black.

now you have "black" and "red" jars left, but since the labels are wrong, you know that "black" cannot be "mixed" because then red would not be mislabeled. Therefore, black actually contains "red" marbles, and the "red" contains mixed marbles.

Sweet!!

Answer 2

if all the labels on the jars are incorrect then
the jar with the black label can only be red marbles or mixed,
the jar with the red label can only be black or mixed,
the jar with the mixed label can only be red or black

you only need remove 1 marble from the jar labelled:
mixed
this will only be red or black & can't be mixed - this will clearly identify the correct colour marble for this jar and both the others.

depending on this colour marble- if it is red, then the jar labelled black, (which is incorrect) can only be mixed, as the red jar has already been identified.

if the 1st marble from the mixed jar is black, then the jar labelled red, which is incorrect) can only be mixed, as the black jar has already been identified.

good puzzle.

Answer 3

Whatever color you pull from the MIXED jar is the actual color that is supposed to be on the label. If the marble you pulled from the MIXED jar was red, pull from the RED jar. If that marble is red, then you have to assume that that jar is actually the MIXED jar seeing that they are all incorrectly labeled. if not, then check the other jar. If the other jar is opposite of what it says on the label then the second jar is still the MIXED jar.

So min. of 2 max of 3

Answer 4

3
take 1 from each of the 3 jars
two will be the same. the odd one will be the jar full of that colour
ie, if 2 reds and 1 black.. the black one will be from the jar which only has black
as the labels are _all_ wrong, it should be a simple matter of elimination to sort out the other 2 - for example - if one of the 2 remaining jars says 'mixed' and one says 'black' you know the jar which says 'mixed' cannot be mixed and must therefore be 'Red'

Answer 5

1 marble only from the jar labelled mixed tells you the colour in that jar, therefore if you pull a red marble from the mixed jar then the jar labelled red must be mixed and the jar labelled black must be red and vice versa if you pull a black marble from the mixed jar then the jar labelled black must be red and the jar labelled red must be mixed

Answer 6

We cant specify the exact number from the given data. But can arrive by trial and error method...

Step 1: Take one marble each from each of the jars. Two will be same and one will be different. Let's say we get, Red Red Black
Staep 2: Mark the one with different marble with the color (Black, in our example).
Step 3: Keep on taking out one marble each from the remaining two jars till you get two different colored marbles. The jar of marbles whose color has not changed will be marked by that color (Red, in our example).
The third jar (remaining jar) is that of mixed marbles.

Answer 7

9

Answer 8

U don't have to remove any marbles just look at them from the jar and label it like that.

Answer 9

3, 2 from the mixed jar (shows the variation) 1 from a jar of one type as the other has to be the other colour

Answer 10

its conceivable that you could remove the same colour everytime from the mixed jar thus making it an unanswerable question as you havent said how many marbles are contained in each jar.