World’s Largest Musical Instrument

Watch a musician play the world’s largest instrument, an organ built by a Pentagon mathematician in Luray Caverns, Virginia. (This was a favorite destination of mine when I was a boy.)

From Kirk Cousins, quarterback of the Washington Redskins:

Sometimes our guests ask why I have this hanging above my desk. It’s an old high school math quiz when I didn’t study at all and got a C+… just a subtle reminder to me of the importance of preparation. If I don’t prepare I get C’s!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/redskins/photos/a.118304319573.96677.102381354573/10155470824244574/?type=3&theater

Pizza Hut Pi Day Challenge: Index

I’m doing something that I should have done a long time ago: collecting a series of posts into one single post. The following links comprised my series on the 2016 Pizza Hut Pi Day Challenge.

Part 1: Statement of the problem.

Part 2: Using the divisibility rules for 1, 5, 9, 10 to reduce the number of possibilities from 3,628,800 to 40,320.

Part 3: Using the divisibility rule for 2 to reduce the number of possibilities to 576.

Part 4: Using the divisibility rule for 3 to reduce the number of possibilities to 192.

Part 5: Using the divisibility rule for 4 to reduce the number of possibilities to 96.

Part 6: Using the divisibility rule for 8 to reduce the number of possibilities to 24.

Part 7: Reusing the divisibility rule for 3 to reduce the number of possibilities to 10.

Part 8: Dividing by 7 to find the answer.

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 5

Recently, I devised the following problem:

Suppose that you have n friends, and you always say “Happy Birthday” to each friend on his/her birthday. On how many days of the year will you not say “Happy Birthday” to one of your friends?

Until somebody tells me otherwise, I’m calling this the Facebook birthday problem in honor of Facebook’s daily alerts to say “Happy Birthday” to friends.

Here’s how I solved this problem. Let $I_k$ be an indicator random variable for “no friend has a birthday on day $k$ , where $k = 366$ stands for February 29 and $k = 1, \dots, 365$ stand for the “usual” 365 days of the year. Therefore, the quantity $N$ , representing the number of days of the year on which no friend has a birthday, can be written as

$N = I_1 + \dots + I_{365} + I_{366}$

In yesterday’s post, I began the calculation of the standard deviation of $N$ by first computing its variance. This calculation is complicated by the fact that $I_1, \dots, I_{366}$ are dependent. Yesterday, I showed that

$\hbox{Var}(N) = 365\displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \left[ 1 - \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \right] + \displaystyle \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n \left[ 1 - \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n \right]$

$+ \displaystyle (365)(364) \left[ \displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^{2n} \right] + 2 \sum_{k=1}^{365}\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$ .

To complete this calculation, I’ll now find $\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$ , where $1 \le k \le 365$ . I’ll use the usual computation formula for a covariance,

$\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366}) = E(I_k I_{366}) - E(I_k) E(I_{366})$ .

We have calculated $E(I_k)$ earlier in this series. In any four-year span, there are $4 \times 365 + 1 = 1461$ days, of which only one is February 29. Assuming the birthday’s are evenly distributed (which actually doesn’t happen in real life), the chance that someone’s birthday is not on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle 1 - \frac{4}{1461} = \displaystyle \frac{1457}{1461}$ ,

so that the probability that no friend has a birthday on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Therefore, since the expected value of an indicator random variable is the probability that the event happens, we have

$E(I_k) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$

for $k = 1, \dots, 365$ . Similarly,

$E(I_{366}) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ ,

so that

$\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366}) = E(I_k I_{366}) - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ .

To find $E(I_k I_{366})$ , we note that since $I_k$ is equal to either 0 or 1 and $I_{366}$ is equal to either 0 or 1, the product $I_k I_{366}$ can only equal 0 and 1 as well. Therefore, $I_k I_{366}$ is itself an indicator random variable. Furthermore, $I_k I_{366} = 1$ if and only if $I_k = 1$ and $I_{366} = 1$ , which means that no friends has a birthday on either day $k$ or day $366$ (that is, February 29). The chance that someone doesn’t have a birthday on day $k$ or February 29 is

$\displaystyle 1 - \frac{4}{1461} - \frac{1}{1461} = \displaystyle \frac{1456}{1461}$ ,

so that the probability that no friend has a birthday on day $k$ or February 29 is

$\displaystyle \left( \frac{1456}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Therefore, as before,

$E(I_k I_{366}) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1456}{1461} \right)^n$ ,

so that

$\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366}) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1456}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Therefore,

$+ \displaystyle (365)(364) \left[ \displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^{2n} \right] + 2(365) \left[ \left( \frac{1456}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n \right]$ ,

and we find the standard deviation of $N$ using

$\hbox{SD}(N) = \sqrt{\hbox{Var}(N)}$ .

The graph below shows the expected value of $N$ , which was shown earlier to be

$E(N) = 365 \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n + \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ ,

along with error bars representing two standard deviations.

Interestingly, the standard deviation of $N$ changes for different values of $n$ ; a direct calculation shows that the $\hbox{SD}(N)$ is maximized at $n = 459$ with maximum value of approximately $6.1$ . Accordingly, for $n = 450$ and $n = 500$ , the error bars in the above figure have a total width of approximately 24 days (two standard deviations both above and below the expected value).

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 4

Recently, I devised the following problem:

Suppose that you have n friends, and you always say “Happy Birthday” to each friend on his/her birthday. On how many days of the year will you not say “Happy Birthday” to one of your friends?

Until somebody tells me otherwise, I’m calling this the Facebook birthday problem in honor of Facebook’s daily alerts to say “Happy Birthday” to friends.

$N = I_1 + \dots + I_{365} + I_{366}$

$+ \displaystyle 2 \!\!\!\!\! \sum_{1 \le j < k \le 365} \!\!\!\!\! \hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k) + 2 \sum_{k=1}^{365} \hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$

To complete this calculation, I’ll now find the covariances. I’ll begin with $\hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k)$ if $1 \le j < k \le 365$ ; that is, if $j$ and $k$ are days other than February 29. I’ll use the usual computation formula for a covariance,

$\hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k) = E(I_j I_k) - E(I_j) E(I_k)$ .

$\displaystyle 1 - \frac{4}{1461} = \displaystyle \frac{1457}{1461}$ ,

so that the probability that no friend has a birthday on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Therefore, since the expected value of an indicator random variable is the probability that the event happens, we have

$E(I_k) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$

for $k = 1, \dots, 365$ . Therefore,

$\hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k) = E(I_j I_k) - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n = E(I_j I_k) - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^{2n}$ .

To find $E(I_j I_k)$ , we note that since $I_j$ is equal to either 0 or 1 and $I_k$ is equal to either 0 or 1, the product $I_j I_k$ can only equal 0 and 1 as well. Therefore, $I_j I_k$ is itself an indicator random variable, which I’ll call $I_{jk}$ . Furthermore, $I_{jk}$ if and only if $I_j = 1$ and $I_k = 1$ , which means that no friends has a birthday on either day $j$ or day $k$ . The chance that someone doesn’t have a birthday on day $j$ or day $k$ is

$\displaystyle 1 - \frac{4}{1461} - \frac{4}{1461} = \displaystyle \frac{1453}{1461}$ ,

so that the probability that no friend has a birthday on day $j$ or $k$ is

$\displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Therefore, as before,

$E(I_j I_k) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n$ ,

so that

$\hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^{2n}$ .

Since there are $\displaystyle {365 \choose 2} = \displaystyle \frac{365\times 364}{2}$ pairs $(j,k)$ so that $1 \le j < k \le 365$ , we have

$+ \displaystyle 2 \times \displaystyle \frac{365\times 364}{2} \left[ \displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^{2n} \right] + 2 \sum_{k=1}^{365}\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$ ,

$+ \displaystyle (365)(364) \left[ \displaystyle \left( \frac{1453}{1461} \right)^n - \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^{2n} \right] + 2 \sum_{k=1}^{365}\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$ .

The calculation of $\hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$ is similar to the above calculation; I’ll write this up in tomorrow’s post.

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 3

Recently, I devised the following problem:

Suppose that you have n friends, and you always say “Happy Birthday” to each friend on his/her birthday. On how many days of the year will you not say “Happy Birthday” to one of your friends?

Until somebody tells me otherwise, I’m calling this the Facebook birthday problem in honor of Facebook’s daily alerts to say “Happy Birthday” to friends.

$N = I_1 + \dots + I_{365} + I_{366}$

In yesterday’s post, I showed that

$E(N) = E(I_1) + \dots + E(I_{365}) + E(I_{366}) = 365 \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n + \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ .

The calculation of the standard deviation of $N$ is considerably more complicated, however, since the $I_1, \dots, I_{366}$ are dependent. So we will begin by computing the variance of $N$ :

$\hbox{Var}(N) = \displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{366} \hbox{Var}(I_k) + 2 \!\!\!\!\! \sum_{1 \le j < k \le 366} \!\!\!\!\! \hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k)$ ,

$\hbox{Var}(N) = \displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^{365} \hbox{Var}(I_k) + \hbox{Var}(I_{366}) + 2 \!\!\!\!\! \sum_{1 \le j < k \le 365} \!\!\!\!\! \hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k) + 2 \sum_{k=1}^{365} \hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$

For the first term, we recognize that, in any four-year span, there are $4 \times 365 + 1 = 1461$ days, of which only one is February 29. Assuming the birthday’s are evenly distributed (which actually doesn’t happen in real life), the chance that someone’s birthday is not on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle 1 - \frac{4}{1461} = \displaystyle \frac{1457}{1461}$ .

Therefore, the chance that all $n$ friends don’t have a birthday on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Using the formula $\hbox{Var}(I) = p(1-p)$ for the variance of an indicator random variable, we see that

$\hbox{Var}(I_k) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \left[ 1 - \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n \right]$

for $k = 1, \dots, 365$ . Similarly, for the second term,

$\hbox{Var}(I_{366}) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n \left[ 1 - \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n \right]$

Therefore, so far we have shown that

$+ \displaystyle 2 \!\!\!\!\! \sum_{1 \le j < k \le 365} \!\!\!\!\! \hbox{Cov}(I_j,I_k) + 2 \sum_{k=1}^{365} \hbox{Cov}(I_k,I_{366})$

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll complete this calculation by finding the covariances.

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 2

Recently, I devised the following problem:

Suppose that you have n friends, and you always say “Happy Birthday” to each friend on his/her birthday. On how many days of the year will you not say “Happy Birthday” to one of your friends?

Until somebody tells me otherwise, I’m calling this the Facebook birthday problem in honor of Facebook’s daily alerts to say “Happy Birthday” to friends.

$N = I_1 + \dots + I_{365} + I_{366}$

Let’s start with any of the “usual” days. In any four-year span, there are $4 \times 365 + 1 = 1461$ days, of which only one is February 29. Assuming the birthday’s are evenly distributed (which actually doesn’t happen in real life), the chance that someone’s birthday is not on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle 1 - \frac{4}{1461} = \displaystyle \frac{1457}{1461}$ .

Therefore, the chance that all $n$ friends don’t have a birthday on day $k$ is

$\displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Since the expected value of an indicator random variable is the probability of the event, we see that

$E(I_k) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n$

for $k = 1, \dots, 365$ . Similarly, the expected value for the indicator for February 29 is

$E(I_{366}) = \displaystyle \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ .

Since $E(X+Y) = E(X) + E(Y)$ even if $X$ and $Y$ are dependent, we therefore conclude that

$E(N) = E(I_1) + \dots + E(I_{365}) + E(I_{366}) = 365 \displaystyle \left( \frac{1457}{1461} \right)^n + \left( \frac{1460}{1461} \right)^n$ .

This function is represented by the red dots on the graph below.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll calculate of the standard deviation of $N$ .

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 1

The “birthday problem” is one of the classic problems in elementary probability because of its counter-intuitive solution. From Wikipedia:

In probability theory, the birthday problem or birthday paradox concerns the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, some pair of them will have the same birthday. By the pigeonhole principle, the probability reaches 100% when the number of people reaches 367 (since there are only 366 possible birthdays, including February 29). However, 99.9% probability is reached with just 70 people, and 50% probability with 23 people. These conclusions are based on the assumption that each day of the year (except February 29) is equally probable for a birthday.

Recently, I devised the following different birthday problem:

Suppose that you have n friends, and you always say “Happy Birthday” to each friend on his/her birthday. On how many days of the year will you not say “Happy Birthday” to one of your friends?

Until somebody tells me otherwise, I’m calling this the Facebook birthday problem in honor of Facebook’s daily alerts to say “Happy Birthday” to friends.

In this series, I will solve this problem. While this may ruin the suspense, here’s a graph of the solution for $100 \le n \le 1000$ along with error bars indicating two standard deviations.

Before deriving this solution, I’ll start with a thought bubble if you’d like to take some time to think about how to do this.

Category: Popular Culture

World’s Largest Musical Instrument

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Single-Digit NFL scores

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Pizza Hut Pi Day Challenge: Index

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 5

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 4

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 3

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 2

Facebook Birthday Problem: Part 1