MathDB

You have to organize a fair procedure to randomly select someone from

n

people so that every one of them would be chosen with the probability

\frac{1}{n}

. You are allowed to choose two real numbers

0<p_1<1

and

0<p_2<1

and order two coins which satisfy the following requirement: the probability of tossing "heads" on the first coin

p_1

and the probability of tossing "heads" on the second coin is

p_2

. Before starting the procedure, you are supposed to announce an upper bound on the total number of times that the two coins are going to be flipped altogether. Describe a procedure that achieves this goal under the given conditions.

Problem Statement