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Shoelaces (Posted on 2005-04-05) Difficulty: 3 of 5
You have a drawer with n shoelaces in it. You reach into the drawer and select two lace ends at random, and tie them together. Repeat this until there are no more untied lace ends left.

If the two ends are from the same lace, or from the same group of laces already tied at their ends, it will form a loop, and therefore no longer have any free ends.

Continue this until all laces are parts of loops, of either 1 lace, 2 laces, etc.

When you're finished, a certain number of loops will have been formed in this fashion, consisting of one or more laces.

What is the expected number of loops?

  Submitted by Charlie    
Rating: 3.8333 (6 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
The expected number is 1/(2n-1) + 1/(2n-3) + ... + 1/3 + 1.

See www.physics.harvard.edu/probweek/sol66.pdf, where it's described in terms of lengths of spaghetti.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
AnswerK Sengupta2008-10-05 02:31:27
re: Intuitive trash talkRichard2005-04-07 02:57:41
Intuitive trash talkajosin2005-04-06 19:21:10
re(2): Recursive definitionRichard2005-04-05 23:41:53
Some Thoughtsre: Recursive definitionJohn Reid2005-04-05 20:00:28
SolutionSolution with explanationJohn Reid2005-04-05 19:36:54
Some ThoughtsRecursive definitionJer2005-04-05 19:14:21
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