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Random wire joins forming one 10-mile loop

Question

Ten parallel wires, each 11 mile long, have their left ends on one side of a wall and their right ends on the other. One electrician, who sees only the left ends, joins them up into 55 random pairs; another, who sees only the right ends, independently joins those into 55 random pairs. What is the probability that the result is a single closed loop 1010 miles long?

Short answer

128/315128/315. Follow the circuit from one wire. Each time you cross to the far side, the end you arrive at must be joined to a wire not yet visited: the chances are 89,67,45,23\tfrac89,\tfrac67,\tfrac45,\tfrac23 on successive steps (the right-side pairing can be taken as fixed). The product is 128315\tfrac{128}{315}.

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

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