American Idol

American Idol is an American singing competition series created by Simon Fuller and produced by 19 Entertainment, and is distributed by FremantleMedia North America. It began airing on Fox on June 11, 2002, as an addition to the Idols format based on the British series Pop Idol and has since become one of the most successful shows in the history of American television. The concept of the series is to find new solo recording artists, with the winner being determined by the viewers in America. Winners chosen by viewers through telephone, Internet, and SMS text voting were Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks, David Cook, Kris Allen, Lee DeWyze, Scotty McCreery, Phillip Phillips, Candice Glover, Caleb Johnson, and Nick Fradiani.

American Idol employs a panel of judges who critique the contestants' performances. The original judges were record producer and music manager Randy Jackson, pop singer and choreographer Paula Abdul and music executive and manager Simon Cowell. The judging panel for the most recent season consisted of country singer Keith Urban, singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, and jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr. The show was originally hosted by radio personality Ryan Seacrest and comedian Brian Dunkleman, with Seacrest continuing on for the rest of the seasons.

American Idol (season 8)

The eighth season of American Idol premiered on January 13, 2009, and concluded on May 20, 2009. Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson continued to judge the show's contestants, along with Ryan Seacrest as host. The season introduced Kara DioGuardi as the fourth judge on the Idol panel. It was also Abdul's final season as a judge.Kris Allen, a native of Conway, Arkansas, was announced the winner of the competition on May 20, 2009, defeating runner-up Adam Lambert after nearly 100 million votes. Kris Allen is the only married winner of the competition at the time of his victory. This was the second season where both of the final two contestants had been in the bottom three or two at least once before the finale, with the first being season three.

The eighth season saw numerous changes to the format of the show. There were 36 semi-finalists instead of 24, and thirteen finalists instead of twelve, nine contestants chosen by the public and four by the judges in a wild card round. Another addition was the "save," which was used on the top seven results show to veto Matt Giraud's elimination.

American Idol (season 1)

The first season of American Idol premiered on June 11, 2002 (under the full title American Idol: The Search for a Superstar) and continued until September 4, 2002. It was won by Kelly Clarkson. This season was co-hosted by Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman, the latter of whom left the show after the season ended.

The winner, Kelly Clarkson, signed with RCA Records, the label in partnership with American Idol's 19 Recordings. Immediately post-finale, Clarkson released two singles, including the coronation song, "A Moment Like This". "A Moment Like This" went on to break a thirty-eight-year-old record held by The Beatles for a song's biggest leap to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It jumped up from number fifty-two to number one in just one week. She held that record for five years but she reclaimed that record back in 2009 with her hit single "My Life Would Suck Without You" when it jumped up from number ninety-seven to number one. Clarkson has enjoyed a successful recording career since winning, with multiple-platinum albums, a number of Top 10 hit singles and three Grammy Awards. Runner-up Justin Guarini also signed with RCA Records, eventually debuting an album in 2003 after the conclusion of season 2. RCA dropped him shortly after its debut. In addition to Clarkson and Guarini, also signed were Nikki McKibbin, Tamyra Gray, R. J. Helton, and Christina Christian.

Boy or Girl paradox

The Boy or Girl paradox surrounds a set of questions in probability theory which are also known as The Two Child Problem,Mr. Smith's Children and the Mrs. Smith Problem. The initial formulation of the question dates back to at least 1959, when Martin Gardner published one of the earliest variants of the paradox in Scientific American. Titled The Two Children Problem, he phrased the paradox as follows:

Gardner initially gave the answers 1/2 and 1/3, respectively; but later acknowledged that the second question was ambiguous. Its answer could be 1/2, depending on how you found out that one child was a boy. The ambiguity, depending on the exact wording and possible assumptions, was confirmed by Bar-Hillel and Falk, and Nickerson.

Other variants of this question, with varying degrees of ambiguity, have been recently popularized by Ask Marilyn in Parade Magazine,John Tierney of The New York Times, and Leonard Mlodinow in Drunkard's Walk. One scientific study showed that when identical information was conveyed, but with different partially ambiguous wordings that emphasized different points, that the percentage of MBA students who answered 1/2 changed from 85% to 39%.