A probability problem

From ChanceWiki
Revision as of 17:11, 16 July 2005 by Jls (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A student asked a member of the Dartmouth math department the following problem:

QUESTION: We start with n ropes and gather their 2n ends together. Then we randomly pair the ends and make n joins. Let E(n) be the expected number of loops. What is E(n)?

You might be interested in trying to solve this problem. You can check your answer here.