I wondered about this when thinking about a more specific case. Consider that 3 people are all on an elevator and each person is equally likely to stay or exit the elevator at each stop. (So, for example, the elevator could stop while no one leaves). What is the expected number of stops before everyone leaves the elevator?
From this, I wanted to determine the expected number of stops for people to leave the elevator. Anyone have any ideas?
Probability
Expected Value
Random Variable
Easy Math Editor
This discussion board is a place to discuss our Daily Challenges and the math and science related to those challenges. Explanations are more than just a solution — they should explain the steps and thinking strategies that you used to obtain the solution. Comments should further the discussion of math and science.
When posting on Brilliant:
*italics*
or_italics_
**bold**
or__bold__
paragraph 1
paragraph 2
[example link](https://brilliant.org)
> This is a quote
\(
...\)
or\[
...\]
to ensure proper formatting.2 \times 3
2^{34}
a_{i-1}
\frac{2}{3}
\sqrt{2}
\sum_{i=1}^3
\sin \theta
\boxed{123}
Comments
you actually cannot solve it as it may be actually having infinite number of stops you can only tell the probability of number of people exiting at a particular stop and we would have to solve according to the problem