- #1
CyberShot
- 133
- 2
The birthday problem solution on Wikipedia seems to beP = Prob of having at least 2 people having the same birthday, given n
d = days in a year
n = # of people in room P = d! / (d^n * (d - n)!) To make calculations easy, let's assume there are 3 days in a year, thus 3 possible birthdays and 3 people in a room.
According to the formula, the prob of a match should be = 3! / (3^3 * 0!)
P = 6 / 27, or roughly 22.2% of the time there should be a match.
Does anyone else think this sounds way too low?
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Now, I did it the long way, and I came up with what I think should be the answer
P = 21 / 27 or roughly 77.8 % of the time
I've also run a computer simulation to corroborate my analytical findings, and, in a room of 3 people, there was a match of at least 2 people between 77 - 82 % of the time out of a 100 runs.
d = days in a year
n = # of people in room P = d! / (d^n * (d - n)!) To make calculations easy, let's assume there are 3 days in a year, thus 3 possible birthdays and 3 people in a room.
According to the formula, the prob of a match should be = 3! / (3^3 * 0!)
P = 6 / 27, or roughly 22.2% of the time there should be a match.
Does anyone else think this sounds way too low?
---
Now, I did it the long way, and I came up with what I think should be the answer
P = 21 / 27 or roughly 77.8 % of the time
I've also run a computer simulation to corroborate my analytical findings, and, in a room of 3 people, there was a match of at least 2 people between 77 - 82 % of the time out of a 100 runs.