Friday Riddle Answer

Options
nudgie
nudgie CSN Member Posts: 1,478 Member
edited March 2014 in Colorectal Cancer #1
RIDDLE: A line of 100 airline passengers is waiting to board a plane. They each hold a ticket to one of the 100 seats on that flight. (For convenience, let's say that the nth passenger in line has a ticket for the seat number n.)
Unfortunately, the first person in line is crazy, and will ignore the seat number on their ticket, picking a random seat to occupy. All of the other passengers are quite normal, and will go to their proper seat unless it is already occupied. If it is occupied, they will then find a free seat to sit in, at random.
What is the probability that the last (100th) person to board the plane will sit in their proper seat (#100)?

ANSWER: The whole things stops whe someone else sits in Crazy Guy's seat. The chances of that range from 1/99 (first person) to 1/1 for thelast guy, so, 1/99, summation from 98 of 2 of (1/ n (n+1) )

This returns 0.5 (50%)

Also, the answer remains 50% no matter how many people are added to the line

Comments

  • Lori-S
    Lori-S CSN Member Posts: 1,277 Member
    #2
    Woo Hoo!
    I got it right with my twisted logic. Applause please ☺

    Not to mention I paid a lot of money for a degree in twisted logic so it's good to see some kinda return on that.

Discussion Boards