MathDB

2016 Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad

Part of Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad

Subcontests

(9)
7
1

Probability problem

Juli is a mathematician and devised an algorithm to find a husband. The strategy is: • Start interviewing a maximum of 10001000 prospective husbands. Assign a ranking rr to each person that is a positive integer. No two prospects will have same the rank rr. • Reject the first kk men and let HH be highest rank of these kk men. • After rejecting the first kk men, select the next prospect with a rank greater than HH and then stop the search immediately. If no candidate is selected after 999999 interviews, the 1000th1000th person is selected.
Juli wants to find the value of kk for which she has the highest probability of choosing the highest ranking prospect among all 10001000 candidates without having to interview all 10001000 prospects. (a) (6 points:) What is the probability that the highest ranking prospect among all 10001000 prospects is the (m+1)th(m + 1)th prospect? (b) (6 points:) Assume the highest ranking prospect is the (m+1)th(m + 1)th person to be interviewed. What is the probability that the highest rank candidate among the first mm candidates is one of the first kk candidates who were rejected? (c) (6 points:) What is the probability that the prospect with the highest rank is the (m+1)th(m+1)th person and that Juli will choose the (m+1)th(m+1)th man using this algorithm? (d) (16 points:) The total probability that Juli will choose the highest ranking prospect among the 10001000 prospects is the sum of the probability for each possible value of m+1m+1 with m+1m+1 ranging between k+1k+1 and 10001000. Find the sum. To simplify your answer use the formula InN1N1+1N2+...+12+1In N \approx \frac{1}{N-1}+\frac{1}{N-2}+...+\frac{1}{2}+1 (e) (6 points:) Find that value of kk that maximizes the probability of choosing the highest ranking prospect without interviewing all 10001000 candidates. You may need to know that the maximum of the function xlnAx1x ln \frac{A}{x-1} is approximately A+1e\frac{A + 1}{e}, where AA is a constant and ee is Euler’s number, e=2.718....e = 2.718....