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Old 10-27-2005, 07:10 PM
Vex Vex is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 18
Default Re: Riddle -- Probability of Expectation

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Hmm. I get .000214...

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This is a challenging problem indeed. I thought I had worked out that the chance of a single line containing the requisite combinations of letters as about 18%, but when I tried to verify by simulation I found out that the actual value is likely to be a little more than twice that.

Back to the drawing board.

Over all, I think that the chances of one of 154 monkey-sonnets qualifying is in the neighborhood of 0.04%. I just need to figure out what's wrong with my math.

My simulation could be invalid as well; I whipped it up in a hurry and didn't double-check too thoroughly. With 8 lines of code, there is an above zero probability of a bug being in there... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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