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Coscott comments on Open Thread for February 11 - 17 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Coscott 11 February 2014 06:08PM

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Comment author: Coscott 12 February 2014 12:02:22AM 1 point [-]

4 with prob 1/24, 3 with prob 6/24, 2 with prob 11/24, 1 with prob 6/24

Mean of 25/12

How did you get 2?

Comment author: mwengler 12 February 2014 12:45:04AM 0 points [-]

Must have counted wrong. Counted again and you are right.

Great problems though. I cannot figure out how to conclude it is the solution you got. Do you do it by induction? I think I could probably get the answer by induction, but haven't bothered trying.

Comment author: Coscott 12 February 2014 01:36:53AM 3 points [-]

Take the kth car. It is at the start of a cluster if it is the slowest of the first k cars. The kth car is therefore at the start of a cluster with probability 1/k. The expected number of clusters is the sum over all cars of the probability that that car is in the front of a cluster.