A run of exactly four dogs at a round table
Question
Twelve animals, six dogs and six cats, are seated in a uniformly random arrangement around a circular table. What is the probability that somewhere around the table there is a block of exactly four consecutive dogs (flanked by cats on both sides)?
Short answer
. Two such blocks would need 8 dogs, so count arrangements containing one pattern cat, 4 dogs, cat. Choose the flanking cats () and the ordered dogs (), then arrange this unit with the other 6 animals around the circle ( ways). Dividing by gives .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Counting and Combinatorics
- Continuous Random Variables and Probability Density Functions
- Cumulative Distribution Functions
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