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Four friends at five diner branches all apart

Question

Four friends plan to have lunch at Jimmy's Diner, not realising it has five branches. Each friend independently goes to a branch chosen uniformly at random. What is the probability that no two of them are at the same branch?

Short answer

24125\tfrac{24}{125}. There are 54=6255^4=625 equally likely assignments, of which 5⋅4⋅3⋅2=1205\cdot4\cdot3\cdot2=120 use four different branches. So the probability is 120625=24125\tfrac{120}{625}=\tfrac{24}{125}.

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

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