Snapped

Suppose there is a very powerful mad guy who decided to save the universe by killing half of all life in it. But before he can do that, he wants to test his idea by experimenting on a small community of 100 people. He will randomly wipe out exactly 50 people from this community, no more, no less.

You just happen to live with a family of 2 other people in this community. What is the probability that all 3 of you survive? .

Luckily, this mad guy promises he won't have any demonstrably nonsense idea again, like reducing the universe to a single atom for example.

The probability all 3 of you survive is a b \frac{a}{b} , where both a and b are coprime positive integers. *Submit your answer as a+b *


The answer is 37.

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2 solutions

Joshua Lowrance
Jun 1, 2019

For all three of your family members to not be included in the snap--sorry, mad science experiment--you all need to be in the 50 50 people who survive. There is a 50 100 \frac{50}{100} chance you will survive, but there is only a 49 99 \frac{49}{99} chance one of your family gets in (because you've already taken the 100 100 th spot, now there are technically 99 99 people in the community. It's a bad way of thinking about it, but it works. Each person does not have a 1 2 \frac{1}{2} chance). There is a 48 98 \frac{48}{98} chance your last family member gets in. Multiplying all of this together, you get ( 50 ) ( 49 ) ( 48 ) ( 100 ) ( 99 ) ( 98 ) = 4 33 \frac{(50)(49)(48)}{(100)(99)(98)}=\frac{4}{33} chance of your family of three surviving.

Viet Tran
Jun 1, 2019

People may make the mistake of thinking everyone has a 0.5 chance of surviving. But if that is the case, there is a chance, albeit extremely small, that all 100 people survive or all get wiped out. With that line of thought, the chance for all 3 of you surviving is 0.125 or 1 8 \frac{1}{8} .

To make sure you all survive, this guy must choose 50 people from 97 other people. He has 97 ! 47 ! × 50 ! \frac { 97! }{ 47!\times 50! } choices

If he doesn't have to make sure you all survive, he can choose from 100 people. So he has 100 ! 50 ! × 50 ! \frac { 100! }{ 50!\times 50! } choices

So the chance you all survive is 97 ! 47 ! × 50 ! 50 ! × 50 ! 100 ! = 4 33 \frac { 97! }{ 47!\times 50! } \frac { 50!\times 50! }{ 100! } =\frac { 4 }{ 33 }

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