Probability of getting the seat..

Lucy was the first to board her flight to Delhi. She forgot her seat number and picks a random seat for herself. After this every single person who gets on the flight sits on his/her seat if it's available or sits on whichever seat is available. Mark is the last to enter the flight and at the moment 99/100 seats were occupied.

What is the probability Mark got to sit in his seat?

1/2 99/100 1/4 1/100

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2 solutions

Patrick Corn
Dec 23, 2019

Consider a person who is sitting in a random available seat (i.e. either Lucy, or someone whose assigned seat is taken). Whether or not Mark will sit in his assigned seat is decided when one of two things happens: such a person sits in Mark's seat, or such a person sits in Lucy's original seat. In the first case, Mark will not sit in his seat; in the second case, everyone after that person, including Mark, will sit in their assigned seat.

These two cases are equally likely to happen, so the probability that Mark sits in his seat is 1/2 . \fbox{1/2}.

Hari Kumar
Dec 22, 2019

Only two cases are possible. Mark sits on his seat as no one has previously occupied it. He cannot sit on his seat as it is already occupied. Hence required probability = 1/2.

what... that's like the classic joke "you either win the lottery or you don't, 50/50 shot"

now i don't know the answer but even if it is 1/2 then that is not nearly a good enough proof to show it

Douglas Foster - 1 year, 5 months ago

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