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Expected largest label among ten drawn from twenty

Question

A box contains 2020 balls numbered 11 to 2020. You draw 1010 of them at random without replacement. What is the expected value of the largest number drawn?

Short answer

210/11210/11. P(max⁡=k)=(k−19)/(2010)P(\max=k)=\binom{k-1}{9}/\binom{20}{10}, and the hockey-stick identity collapses ∑kk(k−1n−1)\sum_k k\binom{k-1}{n-1} to n(N+1n+1)n\binom{N+1}{n+1}. Hence E[max⁡]=n(N+1)n+1=10⋅2111E[\max]=\tfrac{n(N+1)}{n+1}=\tfrac{10\cdot21}{11}.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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