Shared birthdays in a room of N people
Question
Assume 365 equally likely birthdays and ignore leap years.
(a) For a room of people, find the probability that two or more of them share a birthday.
(b) You are one of people in a room. Find the probability that at least one of the others has your birthday.
Short answer
(a) ; (b) . In both cases compute the complement. (a) All birthdays distinct has favourable assignments out of . (b) Each of the other people independently avoids your birthday with probability .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
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