Bernoulli numbers and the probability of a birthday surprise (Q1811084)

Let us consider the event that for a sample of \(k\) uniformly random elements out of size \(n\) there exist at least two identical elements. This is a birthday surprise event. The author shows that Bernoulli numbers can be used to derive arbitrarily exact bounds on the probability of a birthday surprise. This result can be applied to better understand some questions in communication security and pseudorandom number generation.