The Perfect Pack – Redux

Well, glory be!

Two days after lamenting that I had never encountered a perfect pack of M&M’s, and just one day after showing that, on average, only 1 in 64 packs will contain an even number of each color, it finally happened. I bought a pack of M&M’s at the 7-11 (which reminds me of another great problem), and it contained 54 M&M’s in the following distribution of colors:

• Blue – 18
• Brown – 6
• Green – 8
• Yellow – 6
• Orange – 12
• Red – 4

According to the M&M website, the proportion of colors is supposed to be blue, 24%; brown, 13%; green, 16%; yellow, 14%; orange, 20%; and red, 13%. The distribution of colors in the pack that I purchased differs from the expected amounts slightly. But, who cares?

The important point is that there were an even number of each color in the pack! ‘Tis a glorious day!