Archive for birthday cake

Charlie, the next generation [cover]

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2025 by xi'an

birthday paradox, one by one

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics with tags , , , , , on November 1, 2022 by xi'an

An easy riddle, riding the birthday paradox. Namely how many people on average have to sequentially enter a room for a double birthday to occur?

The answer is straightforward,

\sum_{n=2}^{366}n\prod_{m=1}^{n-2}\left(1-\frac{m}{365}\right)\frac{n-1}{365}

as only the last person in can share a birthday with those already in. This sum equals 24.62. Since the “magic number” is 23, this may sound wrong but the median attached to the above distribution is truly 23. My R code is

q=rep(1,a<-366)/365
for(n in 3:a)q[n]=q[n-1]*(1+1/(n-2)-(n-1)/365)
sum(q[-1]*(2:a))

art brut

Posted in Kids, Travel with tags , , , , , on November 17, 2019 by xi'an