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Old 11-18-2007, 01:24 AM
blah_blah blah_blah is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 378
Default Re: Need help conceptualizing the constant \"e\"

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Here is a cooler problem, imo: show that the expected value of the # of people who get their hat back is 1, independent of n.

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How is this cooler? This is way easier to solve than the original problem, just use <font color="white"> indicator functions </font> &lt;---- answer in white.

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sure, this provides an easy solution, but it's essentially a linear technique and thus isn't particularly useful if you want to generalize the problem.

what is

\sum_{\sigma\in S_n} [\fix(\sigma)]^2
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