Stats experiment

[eve11]

How many M&Ms are in this bowl? Tell me your answer in the comments (without looking at others' first).

(Full disclosure, I don't know the answer, it's a contest for a "fun event" at work and I figured I'd try crowdsourcing as my strategy)

Comments

[astrogirl]

Probably a good strategy. I'm going to go with... 170.

(Ooh, you should probably screen the comments, though, so people's answer's don't influence each other.)

[wolfy_writing]

I'm going with either 200 or "trick question, they're Skittles in disguise".

[eve11]

It's a good idea but I figure people will comment first before looking at the rest of the comments.

[eve11]

you know, you may have something there. There might be things in the bowl that aren't M&Ms?

ETA: The official question is stated as "Take a look at this fabulous dish of M&Ms and tell us how many there are" and not "How many M&Ms are in this dish?" so my money is on that it is not a trick question.

[c_carol_again]

I duuno, 60?

[c_carol_again]

"How many there are"? There are one, one fabulous dish.

[nonelvis]

120, based on the extremely scientific principle of "counting a few, making some assumptions about how many there are in one 'slice,' and guessing that I can see about 1/6th of a bowl that could frankly be any size at all."

[singe]

There's 100.

[singe]

I'd like to change my answer to this one.

[profrobert]

54 is my guess.

[giallarhorn]

Hmm, I'd say about 45-60? I can see about 9 in a half circle, and there's about three rows so that's 27 per row, but they're not super compact and there's ones on top, so...yeah, ballpark about 50, give or take?

[kernezelda]

75

[eve11]

Thing is, I can count 50+ just visible so I'd guess it is higher than that.

[a_phoenixdragon]

224

[giallarhorn]

Ohh, true- that'd only get your the outermost circle, but there's stuff you can fill in the circle...hm. I guess if you approximate the radius of the circle at about 5-7, then it'd just be 90-130?

[nostalgia]

100?