(A new question of the week) A question from last month provides an opportunity to show how to develop an algebraic proof of a combinatorial identity involving factorials. We’ll be looking over Doctor Rick’s shoulder as he guides a student through the maze. I’ll also add in a previously published version of the same proof …
Last week, we looked at two solutions to the problem of finding the probability that you can make a triangle using three pieces of a stick, if we cut it at two independently chosen, random locations. This time, we look another solution to that problem, and a similar solution to the version in which we …
This week we look at questions about how likely it is that you can make a triangle out of three random pieces of a stick. As always in probability, the first issue comes in deciding how the process is to be done (that is, what does it mean to break a stick randomly?); we’ll also …
We’ll spend the next couple weeks looking at various counting problems. This topic, called combinatorics, is often studied along with probability, but many of the topics we’ll see here feel more like geometry problems! Here, we’ll be counting the diagonals of a polygon, and handshakes between people at a party. Counting diagonals We’ll start with …
News about testing for viruses has reminded me of a couple problems that I linked to some time ago, but never dealt with directly. The question is, given data such as the result of a (fallible) blood or swab test, how sure can we be of the results? The answer is sometimes surprising. False positives …
(A new question of the week) A question from last August gave us some nice problems reminiscent of the Binomial Theorem, which were very deserving of discussion. Three problems The question came from Arsh: I have some coefficient problems which I am unable to solve. I don’t know if a single concept will work for …
(A new question of the week) A few months ago, I wrote about Ranking a Word Among Its Permutations, that is, finding where a word would be found in an ordered list of all possible “words” made by permuting its letters. The problem in general requires a (sometimes lengthy) algorithm. A month or so later, …
Last time, we looked at the basic definition of independent events. This time I want to explore some deeper questions about the concept. Independence by the numbers We’ve seen that, informally, we think of independent events as not affecting one another’s probabilities. Mathematically, though, independence is defined by the fact (which is implied by that …
The concept of independent events can be both very simple and easily misunderstood. We’ll be looking at several explanations of the idea, starting with the basics and then digging into some deeper questions that are often overlooked. What is independence? We can start with this question from 1998, asking for the basics: Independent and Dependent …
(A new question of the week) There are some topics that appear to be standard in certain parts of the world, but far less familiar in our own. Sometimes it takes two of us to recognize what a student is asking, due to language issues and different past experience with such questions. This is an …