Mike Croucher asked the following question on his blog. Suppose you draw M sequences of random numbers of length N from a random number generator. What is the probability that they will overlap?
Assumes your random number generator is a cyclical list of p unique integers. Each draw picks a random starting point in the cycle [...]
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Your brain can’t generate random numbers, and computers can’t either. Most of the ‘random’ numbers we come across in our lives are actually pseudorandom numbers; random enough for their purpose, but ordered enough to throw statistic... Read Post
Mike Ditka will be the 14th Chicago Bear to have his number retired. He will also be the last. The Bears, who have retired the most numbers of any NFL team, have announced that they will no longer retire numbers after Ditka’s 89 is ... Read Post
Suppose you have a large number of buckets and an equal number of balls. You randomly pick a bucket to put each ball in one at a time. When you’re done, about how what proportion of buckets will be empty? One line of reasoning says ... Read Post