Last passenger's seat after a random first pick
Question
A plane has seats and passengers board in order, passenger holding a ticket for seat . The first passenger ignores the ticket and sits in a uniformly random seat. Every later passenger takes their own seat if free and otherwise a uniformly random free seat. You board last. What is the probability you get your own seat?
Short answer
. The process ends when someone takes either seat or seat . Every random choice treats those two seats symmetrically, so seat is equally likely to be claimed first, in which case you get your seat.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
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