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== History of the paradox ==
The envelope paradox dates back at least to 1943, when Belgian mathematician [[Maurice Kraitchik]] proposed a puzzle in his book ''Recreational Mathematics'' concerning two men who meet and compare their fine neckties.<ref name=brown>{{Cite journal |last=Brown |first=Aaron C. |year=1995 |title=Neckties, Wallets, and Money for Nothing |journal=[[Journal of Recreational Mathematics]] |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=116–122 }}</ref><ref name=kraitchik>{{cite book |first=Maurice |last=Kraitchik |authorlink=Maurice Kraitchik |title="Mathematical Recreations" |publisher=George Allen & Unwin |___location=London |year=1943|url=https://archive.org/details/mathematicalrecr0000maur}}</ref> Each of them knows what his own necktie is worth and agrees for the winner to give his necktie to the loser as consolation. Kraitchik also discusses a variant in which the two men compare the contents of their purses. He assumes that each purse is equally likely to contain 1 up to some large number ''x'' of pennies, the total number of pennies minted to date.<ref name=kraitchik/>
The puzzle is also mentioned in a 1953 book on elementary mathematics and mathematical puzzles by the mathematician [[John Edensor Littlewood]], who credited it to the physicist [[Erwin Schrödinger]], where it concerns a pack of cards, each card has two numbers written on it, the player gets to see a random side of a random card, and the question is whether one should turn over the card. Littlewood's pack of cards is infinitely large and his paradox is a paradox of improper prior distributions.
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