Department of Electrical Engineering

IIT Hyderabad
EE5310-Probability & Random Processes

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Quiz-1

13th Aug, 2015

1.Romeo and Juliet have a date at a given time, and each will arrive at the meeting place with a delay between 0 and 60 min, in steps of 1 min,
with all pairs of delays being equally likely. The first to arrive will wait for 15 min and will leave if other has not yet arrived. What is
probability that they will meet? (5).
Ans: Let us use as sample space the square = [0, 60] [0, 60], whose elements are the possible
pairs of delays for the two of them. Our interpretation of equally likely pairs of delays is to let the
probability of a subset of (the shaded region). This probability law satisfies the three probability
axioms. The event that Romeo and Juliet will meet is the shaded region in Figure and its probability
can be calculated as:

The event M that Romeo and Juliet will arrive within 15 minutes of each other :
M = {(x, y)| |x y| 15, 0 x 60, 0 y 60}
and is shaded in the figure.

Total number of events happening is :n(N1) + n(M) + n(N2),

where N1and N2 are the lower and upper triangles in the figure respectively, where Romeo and
Juliet will not meet for their date and n() denotes the number of occurrences of the event.
The events happening in the lower triangle in the Figure, N1 in terms of the respective delays
occurred in Romeo/Juliets arrival are
{(16, 0)}(1 term), {(17, 1), (17, 2)}(2 terms), ..., {(60, 0), (60, 1), ...(60, 44)(45 terms)}.
Thus, n(N1) = 1 + 2 + ...45 = (45/2) 46
And the total number of events, n(N) = 61 61. Also n(N1) = n(N2)
So, the probability for Romeo and Juliet45to have their date,
p(M) =

()
()

= 1 p(N1) p(N2) = 1

(46)(2)

61 61

= 0.4437

2. If 10 married couples are seated at random at a round table, compute the probability that no wife sits next to her husband. (5 marks)
Ans: If we let Ei , i= 1,2,,10 denote the event that the probability that the ith couple sits next to each other.
It follows that the desired probability is 1 (

10
=1 ).

Now from the proposition

(

10
10
=1 )= 1=1

+ 1

+1

1<2<. (1 2 . )

++.-(1 2 . )

To compute 1 2 . , we first note that there are 19!

ways of araanging 20 peaple around a around table. The no. of arrangements results in a specified set of n men sitting next to their wives
Can most easily obtained first thinking of each of the n married couple as being a single entity, then 20-n entities around a table, and there
clearly (20-n-1)! Such arrangements. Since n married couple can be arranged in any of the two possible ways (WH or HW). Then there are
2 (20-n-1)! Arrangements that result in a specified set of n men sitting next to their wives. Therefore

Thus from the proposition , we obtain that the probability that atleast on married sits together equals

And the desired probability equals 1-0.6605=0.3395 (Approx.)