Couples adjacent at an alternating round table
Question
Around a circular table with seats (), husbands and their wives are seated at random, subject to men and women alternating. What is the expected number of couples in which the husband and wife sit next to each other?
Short answer
. Fix a husband's seat. Both of his neighbours are women, and his wife is equally likely to be in any of the women's seats, so she is next to him with probability . Summing over couples gives .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Expectation and Variance Revisited
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
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