Bascule is reading a book.
What is the probability that the first digit of the page he is on is 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5?
a) obtain an expression
b) approximate a numerical value
(In reply to
re(2): First Steps? by levik)
I don't know. Given the vagueness of the question, maybe assuming real word numbers would be of help in coming up with a value for part b. I think Jim's already posted the solution to part a already, so that's all we're really looking for now.
So, how about assuming that Bascule's book is likely to have a number of pages somewhere between 50 (less than this isn't really a 'book' - more of a pamphlet) and 600 (maybe higher or lower, depending on the average kind of book Bascule reads), say? The bottom limit isn't so much of a contributing factor to the overall 'number' we're going to be coming up with, to be honest, so I'm not too concerned about that. I've just been toying around with some numbers on a bit of paper and I seem to be getting around about an 80% likelihood that the page-number starts with a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. But then, I was drinking last night, so who knows if this is in anyway realistic... ;-)
re(3): First Steps?
