Absent-minded passengers

DOI10.1080/00029890.2019.1656024zbMATH Open1442.60014arXiv1809.10192OpenAlexW2990539511MaRDI QIDQ4972075FDOQ4972075

Authors: Norbert Henze, Günter Last 

Publication date: 22 November 2019

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

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.

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

Recommendations

• Finding your seat versus tossing a coin
• Optimal boarding policies for thin passengers
• The blind passenger and the assignment problem
• Buses, bullies, and bijections
• Analysis of aeroplane boarding via spacetime geometry and random matrix theory

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

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

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• The distribution of the size of the union of cycles for two types of random permutations
• Probability. An introduction
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Finding Your Seat Versus Tossing a Coin

Cited In (5)

• The absent-minded driver
• Sleeping Beauty and the absent-minded driver
• The forgetful passenger
• The lost boarding pass and other practical problems
• The absent-minded passengers problem: a motivating challenge solved by computer algebra

This page was built for publication: Absent-minded passengers

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q4972075)