A toy cube is symmetrical, but it’s unusual: two faces have two points, and the other four have one point. Sarah threw the cube several times, and as a result, the sum of all of the points was 3. Find the probability that one throw resulted in the face with 2 points coming up.
The teacher on probability theory leaned back in his chair and looked at the screen. The list of those who signed up is ready. The total number of people turned out to be \(n\). Only they are not in alphabetical order, but in a random order in which they came to the class.
“We need to sort them alphabetically,” the teacher thought, “I’ll go down in order from the top down, and if necessary I’ll rearrange the student’s name up in a suitable place. Each name should be rearranged no more than once”.
Prove that the mathematical expectation of the number of surnames that you do not have to rearrange is \(1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + \dots + 1/n\).
Are there functions \(p (x)\) and \(q (x)\) such that \(p (x)\) is an even function and \(p (q (x))\) is an odd function (different from identically zero)?
10 children were each given a bowl with 100 pieces of pasta. However, these children did not want to eat and instead started to play. One of the children started to place one piece of pasta into every other child’s bowl. What is the least amount of transfers needed so that everyone has a different number of pieces of pasta in their bowl?
100 children were each given a bowl with 100 pieces of pasta. However, these children did not want to eat and instead started to play. One of the children started to place one piece of her pasta into other children’s bowls (to whomever she wants). What is the least amount of transfers needed so that everyone has a different number of pieces of pasta in their bowl?
The function \(f (x)\) is defined for all real numbers, and for any \(x\) the equalities \(f (x + 2) = f (2 - x)\) and \(f (x + 7) = f (7 - x)\) are satisfied. Prove that \(f (x)\) is a periodic function.
Once upon a time there were twenty spies. Each of them wrote an accusation against ten of his colleagues. Prove that at least ten pairs of spies have told on each other.
Fred chose 2017 (not necessarily different) natural numbers \(a_1, a_2, \dots , a_{2017}\) and plays by himself in the following game. Initially, he has an unlimited supply of stones and 2017 large empty boxes. In one move Fred adds a1 stones to any box (at his choice), in any of the remaining boxes (of his choice) – \(a_2\) stones, ..., finally, in the remaining box – \(a_{2017}\) stones. His purpose is to ensure that eventually all the boxes have an equal number of stones. Could he have chosen the numbers so that the goal could be achieved in 43 moves, but is impossible for a smaller non-zero number of moves?
When one scientist comes up with an ingenious idea, he writes it down on a piece of paper, but then he realises that the idea is not brilliant, scrunches up this sheet of paper and throws it under the table, where there are two rubbish bins. The scientist misses the first bin with a probability \(p > 0.5\), and with the same probability he misses the second. In the morning, the scientist threw five crumpled brilliant ideas under the table. Find the probability that there was at least one of these ideas in each bin.
The television game “What? Where? When?” consists of a team of “experts” trying to solve 13 questions (or sectors), numbered from 1 to 13, that are thought up and sent in by the viewers of the programme. Envelopes with the questions are selected in turn in random order with the help of a spinning top with an arrow. If this sector has already come up previously, and the envelope is no longer there, then the next clockwise sector is played. If it is also empty, then the next one is played, etc., until there is a non-empty sector.
Before the break, the players played six sectors.
a) What is more likely: that sector number 1 has already been played or that sector number 8 has already been plated?
b) Find the probability that, before the break, six sectors with numbers from 1 to 6 were played consecutively.