Choosing sides

Angel, Bob and Chris each randomly choose different faces of a dodecahedron.

The probability that none of the three faces are adjacent, is a b \frac{a}{b} where a a and b b are coprime positive integers.

What is a + b a+b ?


Image credit: http://mathcentral.uregina.ca


The answer is 12.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Geoff Pilling
May 30, 2017

Angel chooses a face. Lets call this face A.

In order for none of the faces to be adjacent, Bob has five faces to choose from, namely the five that are neither opposite or adjacent to the one that Angel chose. Lets call this face B. There is a 5 11 \dfrac{5}{11} chance he will pick a valid face.

Note : He can't have chosen the one opposite to A since then all the remaining faces are adjecent to either A or B.

Finally, C has two faces to choose from. Namely, the two of the five B had to choose from that aren't adjacent to B (or B itself!) There are 2 10 \dfrac{2}{10} ways to do this.

So, the probability that none of the three faces are adjacent is given by:

P = 5 11 2 10 = 1 11 P = \dfrac{5}{11} \cdot \dfrac{2}{10} = \dfrac{1}{11}

1 + 11 = 12 1+11 = \boxed{12}

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...