返回题库

PUMaC 2017 · 团队赛 · 第 8 题

PUMaC 2017 — Team Round — Problem 8

专题
Discrete Math / 离散数学
难度
L3
来源
PUMaC

题目详情

  1. (6) Tristan is eating his favorite cereal, Tiger Crunch, which has marshmallows of two colors, black and orange. He eats the marshmallows by randomly choosing from those remaining one p at a time, and he starts out with 17 orange and 5 black marshmallows. If is the expected q number of marshmallows remaining the instant that there is only one color left, and p and q are relatively prime positive integers, find p + q . 1
解析
  1. Suppose there are m orange and n black marshmallows. We compute the probability of there being exactly k marshmallows of a given color the instant that color is the only one remaining. WLOG orange. First, we compute the probability of arriving at k orange and 1 black (this 1 is the state right before our desired state); then we multiply by . We need to take m − k k +1 ( ) m + n − k − 1 orange marshmallows and n − 1 black marshmallows in some order. There are ways m − k to do this. We then multiply this by m ( m − 1) · · · · · ( k + 1) = m ! /k ! and n ( n − 1) · · · · · 2 = n ! ( k +1)! 1 1 1 the denominator of this probability, · · · · · · = . This comes out with m + n m + n − 1 k +2 ( m + n )! m + n − k − 1 ( ) ( ) m ! n !( k +1)! m + n − k − 1 n − 1 = ( k + 1) . Multiplying by the probability of then choosing the m + n k !( m + n )! n − 1 ( ) m m + n − k − 1 ( ) n − 1 last remaining black marshmallow gives . The weight for the expectation is thus m + n ( ) m m + n − k − 1 ( ) n − 1 k . m + n ( ) m Using symmetry in the system to compute the case for black, we find ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) m m + n − k − 1 n m + n − k − 1 m n ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ 1 m + n − k − 1 m + n − k − 1 n − 1 m − 1 ( ) ( ) ( ) E = k + k = k + k m + n m + n m + n n − 1 m − 1 m m m k =1 k =1 k =1 k =1 and by the Hockey Stick Identity, (( ) ( )) 1 m + n m + n m n 28 ( ) E = + = + = , m + n n + 1 m + 1 n + 1 m + 1 9 m so the final answer is 37 . Problem written by Zack Stier