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The decisive straw (Posted on 2014-07-25) Difficulty: 3 of 5
One by one straws are placed on a mathematical camel’s back.
The straws have random weight, being drawn independently from the uniform distribution 0 to 1.
The camel’s back breaks when the total weight of the straws exceeds 1.

What’s the expected weight of the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

Source: abridged from "Mind your decisions" blog.

No Solution Yet Submitted by Ady TZIDON    
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link to the source | Comment 5 of 6 |
I just searched for the blog referred to in the problem, and in fact the value 0.640859 corresponds to 2 - e/2.

Edited on July 28, 2014, 1:32 am
  Posted by Larry on 2014-07-28 01:30:45

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