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Seven people seated round a table in age order

Question

Seven people, no two of the same age, take seats around a circular table in a uniformly random arrangement. What is the probability that going around the table their ages are in sorted order, whether increasing clockwise or counter-clockwise?

Short answer

1/3601/360. Up to rotation there are 6!=7206!=720 equally likely circular orders. Exactly two of them (ascending one way or the other) are sorted, giving 2720\tfrac{2}{720}.

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