Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Why shouldn't the Bose-Einstein value be used to calculate birthday probabilities?

+0
−3

Can you please expound and simplify the embolden phrase below?

As another example, with n = 365 days in a year and k people, how many possible unordered birthday lists are there? For example, for k = 3, we want to count lists like (May 1, March 31, April 11), where all permutations are considered equivalent. We can't do a simple adjustment for overcounting such as $\dfrac{n^k}{3!}$ since, e.g., there are 6 permutations of (May 1, March 31, April 11) but only 3 permutations of (March 31, March 31, April 11). By Bose-Einstein, the number of lists is $\dbinom{n+k-1}{k}$. But the ordered birthday lists are equally likely, not the unordered lists [Emphasis mine], so the Bose-Einstein value should not be used in calculating birthday probabilities. $\square$

Blitzstein. Introduction to Probability (2019 2 ed). p 20.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

0 comment threads

0 answers

Sign up to answer this question »