Discrete Ideas

Have you ever had a problem stuck in your head, and you couldn’t find the answer? I was recently reminded of a problem I first came up with while doing a statistics workbook the summer of my 3rd grade year (yes, my math-teacher mother gave us workbooks to do during summer break… hey, it got results). The book dealt with dice and the probabilities of a 1 showing on a 6-sider, or the sum of 2 rolled dice being 7, etc. but my question had a twist I couldn’t quite solve. Now it’s easy to see that the probability of rolling a 1 on a 6-sided die is 1 in 6, but what probability exists, in rolling 2 dice, of seeing at least one 1 (on either die, or both)?

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