Timeline for Difficulty with a formula for a probability related to card shuffling
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 13, 2016 at 10:50 | vote | accept | Jack M | ||
| May 13, 2016 at 8:09 | comment | added | Carlo Beenakker | @JackM --- the stated formula is an asymptotic large-$n$ result, I don't think you can hope for an exact agreement at finite $n$, see the derivation below. | |
| May 12, 2016 at 22:10 | comment | added | Jack M | @KevinP.Costello I don't quite see how that leads to the stated formula, though. In the $n = 3, k= 1$ case that I mentioned, if we ignore the possibility of a single cutpoint, we still get $p^2(1-p)=\frac 1 8$, and not $\frac 1 6$. | |
| May 12, 2016 at 20:49 | answer | added | Carlo Beenakker | timeline score: 1 | |
| May 12, 2016 at 20:39 | comment | added | Kevin P. Costello | Immediately prior to the passage you state the author notes that the given probability is not exactly correct "because of the remote possibility that, at a given shuffle, there are no cutpoints at all or exactly one cutpoint", but that this becomes vanishingly unlikely as $n$ increases. | |
| May 12, 2016 at 20:01 | history | asked | Jack M | CC BY-SA 3.0 |