Monday, 24 February 2014

probability - Solving birthday problem without complement

I'm trying to find the probability of at least 2 people in a room of 4 sharing the same birthday (without using complements).



I began by breaking the problem down into 4 cases:



Let E = the event that at least 2 people share the same birthday in a room of 4.



Our sample size: 3654




Case 1: 4 people share the same birthday: 365 ways



Case 2: 3 people share the same birthday, 1 distinct birthday: 365364C(4,3)



Case 3: 2 people share a birthday, another 2 people share some other birthday: 365364C(4,2)2



Case 4: 2 people share same birthday, 2 distinct birthdays: 365364363C(4,2)2



After adding up all the cases and dividing by the sample size to find probability the answer had an over-count. I checked my answer by doing P(E)=13653643633623654




Where did I have an over-count? Thank you!






Here is an example that works with n = 3 people and at least 2 people share same birthday.



Case 1: 3 people share same birthday: 365



Case 2: 2 Same birthdays, 1 different: 365 \cdot 364 \cdot \binom{3}{2}




P(E) = \frac{365 + (365 \cdot 364 \cdot \binom{3}{2})}{365^3} \equiv 1 - \frac{365 \cdot 364 \cdot 363}{365^3}



Those are both equivalent answers because in the complement we're subtracting away the event that all birthdays are distinct.

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