Timeline for Men in a bar - stoch. processes
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
3 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 20, 2012 at 18:06 | comment | added | Sean Eberhard | It follows from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_total_expectation. Suppose there are $m$ men remaining, and that they all go to fetch their umbrellas. This adds 1 to the rounds-count, hence the initial 1. After the round, with probability $p_k$, there are exactly $k$ men remaining, and the expected number of rounds to get rid of them all is $t_k$. | |
| Jan 20, 2012 at 8:38 | comment | added | Peter | Dear Sean, thank you for this wonderful answer. It helps me very much. Unfortunately I don't understand how to get a precise derivation of the first formula. Could you help me there again? | |
| Jan 18, 2012 at 10:18 | history | answered | Sean Eberhard | CC BY-SA 3.0 |