Re: generalized birthday problem

From: Dave Seaman (dseaman_at_no.such.host)
Date: 11/12/04 

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:36:29 +0000 (UTC)

On 12 Nov 2004 13:13:58 -0800, Phillip wrote:
> Suppose the year has n days in it (on earth n=365).

> Any person's birthday is chosen uniformly at random from the n days.

> Suppose you put people in a big room. In that room, if two people have the
> same birthday, they can get married, and then leave the room together.

> What is the expected number of people you have to put into the room if you
> want to get some fixed number m of marriages (so m disjoint couples leave the
> room)?

> Is there a simple expression for this value? How does one get it?

Since you are not assuming the people are earthlings, two questions arise:

        1. Are same-sex marriages allowed?
        2. If not, how many sexes are there? 

-- 
Dave Seaman
Judge Yohn's mistakes revealed in Mumia Abu-Jamal ruling.
<http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=228>