Absent-minded passengers

DOI10.1080/00029890.2019.1656024MaRDI QIDQ4972075zbMATHOpenAlexFDO

Authors Norbert Henze, Günter Last

Publication date 22 November 2019

Published in The American Mathematical Monthly (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10192

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Central limit and other weak theorems (60F05) Combinatorial probability (60C05) Recreational mathematics (00A08)

Abstract: Passengers board a fully booked airplane in order. The first passenger picks one of the seats at random. Each subsequent passenger takes his or her assigned seat if available, otherwise takes one of the remaining seats at random. It is well known that the last passenger obtains her own seat with probability $1/2$. We study the distribution of the number of incorrectly seated passengers, and we also discuss the case of several absent-minded passengers.

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Cites work

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Cited in

(7)

• The absent-minded driver
• Buses, bullies, and bijections
• Finding your seat versus tossing a coin
• The absent-minded passengers problem: a motivating challenge solved by computer algebra
• Sleeping Beauty and the absent-minded driver
• The lost boarding pass and other practical problems
• The forgetful passenger

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