Three squares are chosen at random on a chess board. Find the probability that they lie on any diagonal.
Note:
A line connecting the three squares
(
1
,
1
)
,
(
2
,
3
)
,
(
3
,
5
)
does not form a diagonal.
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.
Sir, I didn't get the second part!! Will you please explain it a bit? and one more question!! The red, green and blue lines connect 8, 7 and 4 squares respectively, why P = 8 C 3 + 7 C 3 + 4 C 3 is not applicable here? Thanks in advance! :D
Log in to reply
The problem asks for probability of choosing 3 squares on any diagonal, not any of the three colored diagonals.
As the problem is about probability, the correct way to solve this is using permutation rather than combination. Because {(1,1), (2,2), (3,3)} will appear in the total outcomes 3 times. What do you think ? [Of course the answer will come out to be same]
What is the meaning of second line ?
Log in to reply
Consider the positive slope for example. The longest diagonal is the one starts at the bottom left-most square to the top right-most square. It cuts through 8 squares. The diagonals on the left and right of this longest diagonal cut through 7 squares. The ones second left and second right to the longest diagonal cut through 6 cells and so on. Therefore there are 15 diagonals with positive slope. Similarly there are 15 diagonals with negative slope.
Total Number of ways to choose 3 squares = 6 4 × 6 3 × 6 2
As there are 64 ways to choose the first square, there are 63 ways to choose the second square and so on.
Diagonal with size 8 appears 2 times and the diagonal with size {3, 4, ..., 7} appears 4 times.
∴ Number of times we get 3 squares that lie on a diagonal out of total outcomes is
2 × 8 P 3 + 4 × ∑ i = 3 7 i P 3 = 2 × 3 3 6 + 4 × ( 6 + 2 4 + 6 0 + 1 2 0 + 2 1 0 ) = 2 × 3 3 6 + 4 × 4 2 0 = 2 3 5 2
∴ The probability to get the three squares on a diagonal = 6 4 × 6 3 × 6 2 2 3 5 2 = 7 4 4 7
Nice Solution
Problem Loading...
Note Loading...
Set Loading...
The total number of possible ways to choose 3 squares from a 8 × 8 chessboard: N = ( 3 6 4 ) = 1 × 2 × 3 6 4 × 6 3 × 6 2 = 4 1 6 6 4
There are two sets of 15 diagonals (positive and negative slopes or incline to the right and left respectively) that cut through the following numbers of squares: { 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 7 , 6 , 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 , 1 }
We note that if the diagonal cuts through n squares, the number of ways to choose three squares on the diagonal is given by ( 3 n ) . Therefore, the total number of possible ways to choose 3 squares on all 30 diagonals is given by:
M = 2 [ ( 3 1 ) + ( 3 2 ) + ( 3 3 ) + ( 3 4 ) + ( 3 5 ) + ( 3 6 ) + ( 3 7 ) + ( 3 8 ) + ( 3 7 ) + ( 3 6 ) + ( 3 5 ) + ( 3 4 ) + ( 3 3 ) + ( 3 2 ) + ( 3 1 ) ] = 2 ( 0 + 0 + 1 + 4 + 1 0 + 2 0 + 3 5 + 5 6 + 3 5 + 2 0 + 1 0 + 4 + 1 + 0 + 0 ) = 2 ( 1 9 6 ) = 3 9 2
Therefore the probability that the 3 squares chosen line on a diagonal: N M = 4 1 6 6 4 3 9 2 = 7 4 4 7