Trying to be certain

I have a 6-sided die. How many times minimum should I throw this die in order to be 99.999999999999999999999999 % 99.999999999999999999999999 \% (there are 24 nines after the decimal point) certain that I will throw at least one 6 6 ?


The answer is 329.

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1 solution

Chew-Seong Cheong
Oct 29, 2018

The probability of not getting a 6 after n n throws is q = ( 5 6 ) n q = \left(\dfrac 56\right)^n . Therefore, the probability of getting at least a 6 after n n throws is p = 1 q = 1 ( 5 6 ) n p = 1 - q = 1 - \left(\dfrac 56\right)^n . Then we have:

p 0. 999 999 # of 9s = 26 1 ( 5 6 ) n 1 1 0 26 ( 5 6 ) n 1 0 26 Taking log 10 both sides n ( log 10 5 log 10 6 ) 26 \begin{aligned} p & \ge 0.\underbrace{999 \cdots 999}_{\text{\# of 9s }=26} \\ 1 - \left(\dfrac 56\right)^n & \ge 1 - 10^{-26} \\ \implies \left(\dfrac 56\right)^n & \le 10^{-26} & \small \color{#3D99F6} \text{Taking }\log_{10} \text{ both sides} \\ n \left(\log_{10} 5 - \log_{10} 6\right) & \le - 26 \end{aligned}

n 26 log 10 6 log 10 5 328.361 n = 329 \begin{aligned} \implies n & \ge \frac {26}{\log_{10} 6 - \log_{10} 5} \approx 328.361 \\ n & = \boxed{329} \end{aligned}

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