• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 07:39
CEST 13:39
KST 20:39
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Code S Season 1 (2026) - RO4 & Finals Preview5[ASL21] Ro4 Preview: On Course12Code S Season 1 - RO8 Preview7[ASL21] Ro8 Preview Pt2: Progenitors8Code S Season 1 - RO12 Group A: Rogue, Percival, Solar, Zoun13
Community News
Weekly Cups (May 11-17): Classic wins double0Code S Season 1 (2026) - RO8 Results2Weekly Cups (May 4-10): Clem, MaxPax, herO win1Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule !16Weekly Cups (April 27-May 4): Clem takes triple0
StarCraft 2
General
Weekly Cups (May 11-17): Classic wins double Code S Season 1 (2026) - RO4 & Finals Preview Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - The Finalists Code S Season 1 (2026) - RO8 Results Code S Season 1 (2026) - RO12 Results
Tourneys
$1,400 SEL Season 3 Ladder Invitational GSL Code S Season 2 (2026) GSL Code S Season 1 (2026) $5,000 WardiTV Spring Championship 2026 Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule !
Strategy
Custom Maps
[D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3 [A] Nemrods 1/4 players
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 526 Rubber and Glue Mutation # 525 Wheel of Misfortune Mutation # 524 Death and Taxes
Brood War
General
25 Years Since Brood War Patch 1.08 BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Lights Ro.8 Review (asl s21) BW General Discussion vespene.gg — BW replays in browser
Tourneys
[ASL21] Semifinals B [BSL22] RO8 Bracket Stage + Another TieBreaker [ASL21] Ro8 Day 4 Escore Tournament StarCraft Season 2
Strategy
Muta micro map competition Fighting Spirit mining rates [G] Hydra ZvZ: An Introduction Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne ZeroSpace Megathread War of Dots, 2026 minimalst RTS Nintendo Switch Thread
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Vanilla Mini Mafia Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread US Politics Mega-thread YouTube Thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread UK Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Formula 1 Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
streaming software Strange computer issues (software) [G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Why RTS gamers make better f…
gosubay
How EEG Data Can Predict Gam…
TrAiDoS
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1715 users

Rapists math problem - Page 2

Blogs > jtan
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 All
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 19 2008 19:35 GMT
#21
Correct~~!

But using that formula asta posted is almost cheating-.,-

Also, the formula doesn't at all require large n since the taylor expansion for 1/e converges amazingly fast. In the problem I said "a large number of rapists". You get 2 correct decimals already at n=5, and with n=20 you get 18 correct decimals.
Enter a Uh
FirstBorn
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
Romania3955 Posts
February 19 2008 21:27 GMT
#22
On February 20 2008 04:25 Cascade wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 20 2008 02:52 clazziquai wrote:
On February 20 2008 02:42 Cascade wrote:
Solution.

+ Show Spoiler +
Let n be the number of rapists. That random guy can relabel the samples in n! different ways. n choices for where to put hte first label, n-1 for the second label, etc.

-----------------flawed------------
In how many ways can he label them such that he doesnt place the right name on any sample?
For the first label, he has n-1 alternatives. Lets say he places the first label on sample number i. Then the label i can go n-1 samples still, since the only one occupied is his own. So label i goes on sample j. Label j now can go n-2 samples, since i is occupied, and j is both occupied and forbidden. etc. Total number of possible "all innocent" labelings becomes
------------------flawed------------

(n-1)(n-1)(n-2)(n-3)...3*2*1 = n! / n <-- wrong

Now we see that the number of "all innocent" labelings is 1/n times as many as the total number of labels from which we can say that the probability of all the rapists going free is 1/n. Seems to fit with brute force for n=2 and n=3.


EDIT: found a flaw. And a misscalcualtion. sorry, just disregard.


You sound so smart lol. Didn't you solve another really hard math problem earlier? >_>

Is this statistics?


haha, thanks I guess. I've been posting in a few other threads like these yes...


What he means is that he solved all the problems in threads like these.
SonuvBob: Yes, the majority of TL is college-aged, and thus clearly stupid.
gwho
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
United States632 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-02-19 21:33:30
February 19 2008 21:30 GMT
#23
+ Show Spoiler +
0%, because now his fingerprints are all over the samples. they probably set up "connections" for every suspect. and anyone innocent wouldn't touch them.

too easy.

one giveaway is the fact that it's a "large number" of rapists. you should give a number of rapists like 100 or something.
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 19 2008 22:21 GMT
#24
........

The fact that the actual number of rapists doesn't matter is what makes it interesting -_-
Enter a Uh
Slithe
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
United States985 Posts
February 19 2008 22:31 GMT
#25
It makes me happy to see that my blog has inspired other people to post up cool math problems. We should create a TL math ring :D
thoraxe
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States1449 Posts
February 19 2008 23:55 GMT
#26
man this is waaaaaaay harder than what i thought. I hate these theoretical probablility problems.
Obama singing "Kick Ass" Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yghFBt-fXmw&feature=player_embedde
imDerek
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States1944 Posts
February 20 2008 02:24 GMT
#27
this is called derangement
Least favorite progamers: Leta, Zero, Mind, Shine, free, really <-- newly added
dinmsab
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Malaysia2246 Posts
February 21 2008 11:54 GMT
#28
Last time it was prisoners, now its rapist...

I like using prisoners moar.
..
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 23 2008 17:16 GMT
#29
On February 21 2008 20:54 dinmsab wrote:
Last time it was prisoners, now its rapist...

I like using prisoners moar.

haha, next time slithe and I will construct a prison rape math problem!
Enter a Uh
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 23 2008 18:09 GMT
#30
And yeah by request, here is a complete solution, pretty carefully explained. If you are not really into math but would like to know a little-> hit the spoiler buttons!


Ok, let's say there are n rapists, although this won't really matter.

The blood samples are can be labeled in N0:=n! ways.

In how many of these cases does atleast 1 label get the right bloodsample?

N1:=n*(n-1)! = n!

+ Show Spoiler +
first pick 1 of the rapists. Can do that in n ways, Say he got connected with his own bloodsample. Then randomly map the others names into samples in (n-1)! ways


And more generally. In how many cases does atleast i rapists get connected with the right sample?

Ni:=(n over i)*(n-i)!=n!/i!

+ Show Spoiler +
choosing first i from the rapists and giving them the right sample connection. Then randomly distributing the others. So this is the number of ways that could be done.


Now simply by the principle of inclusion/exclusion, N:=number of ways that nobody is connected with his own sample is:

N=N0-N1+N2-N3+...(-1)^i*Ni+...Nn

+ Show Spoiler +
This might be hard to grasp if you havn't seen it before, but it's a fun concept so I'll explain it briefly.

There are totally N0 ways. But then we counted too many, so we remove those cases where 1 guy (or more) got the right sample -> -N1. But then we counted too too few, because we took away some cases twice or more. So we have to add N2 and so on. Well might still be hard to see. Let's have a quick example.
+ Show Spoiler [example] +

25 people on tl.net:
12 plays starcraft
8 plays wc3
9 plays wow

4 plays sc and wc3
3 plays wc3 and wow
3 plays sc and wow

1 plays sc wc3 and wow

So of the 25, how many doesn't play?
One way of calculating this would be 25-(12+8+9)+(4+3+3)-1=5

Simple to understand if you think about it. Or draw venn diagrams.



Ok, if you convinced yourself, let's draw calculate the probability in the original question. p:=probability that no rapist is matched with his own sample=

N/N0=N/n!=1-1+1/2!-1/3!+1/4!-...+(-1)^n *1/n!

If you had kept going forever without stopping at the n:th term you have the taylor expansion for e^-1 exactly.

+ Show Spoiler +
In case you are not familiar with taylor expansions, this is a way to express (almost) any function as a infinite polynomial. This is done by constructing the polynomial so that it's function value and all power-derivatives have the same value for some point.
Taylor expansion for e can be calculated to

e^x=1+x/1!+x^2/2!+...+x^i/i!+...

using the point zero.

(wiki for taylor expansion)

Now take x=-1 to get the exact formula we were stuck with above!


so p=~1/e. The more terms we have in the expansion the closer we will get. Since the sum is alternating with decreasing terms it's simple to show that error=|p-1/x|<1/(n+1)!

So 20 rapists would give a smaller error from 1/e than 1/21!=extremy little.


Wow, this looks a lot more complex then it really is, hope I don't scare away some hs students from math If you take math at university it all comes step by step, and it's not really hard at all.

Cheers!
Enter a Uh
Prev 1 2 All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Kung Fu Cup
11:00
#8
IntoTheiNu 382
RotterdaM343
WardiTV326
Rex66
SteadfastSC65
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Ryung 746
RotterdaM 343
Lowko252
Rex 66
SteadfastSC 65
StarCraft: Brood War
Bisu 1300
Horang2 1222
Jaedong 747
Nal_rA 463
actioN 332
Mini 326
Hyuk 296
Larva 264
EffOrt 207
Soma 196
[ Show more ]
firebathero 177
BeSt 167
ggaemo 155
Light 154
Rush 154
ToSsGirL 147
Soulkey 123
Pusan 109
Mind 93
Liquid`Ret 78
ZerO 61
Mong 51
Hyun 41
hero 32
Sharp 30
Sea.KH 30
JulyZerg 23
Shinee 22
soO 21
910 19
Sexy 17
sorry 17
HiyA 15
Barracks 14
GoRush 14
Movie 10
ajuk12(nOOB) 10
Noble 9
Terrorterran 7
Icarus 5
Dota 2
Gorgc5727
Dendi418
XaKoH 400
XcaliburYe86
Counter-Strike
olofmeister2210
x6flipin289
allub258
markeloff135
edward87
Other Games
singsing2080
B2W.Neo590
byalli527
crisheroes258
Trikslyr21
ZerO(Twitch)13
Organizations
Counter-Strike
PGL1004
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 20
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• iopq 8
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Nemesis2259
• Jankos1222
Upcoming Events
WardiTV Qualifier
2h 21m
GSL
21h 51m
Cure vs sOs
SHIN vs ByuN
Replay Cast
1d 12h
GSL
1d 21h
Classic vs Solar
GuMiho vs Zoun
WardiTV Spring Champion…
1d 23h
Replay Cast
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
WardiTV Spring Champion…
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
Classic vs SHIN
Rogue vs Bunny
[ Show More ]
BSL
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Afreeca Starleague
4 days
Flash vs Soma
RSL Revival
4 days
BSL
5 days
Patches Events
5 days
Universe Titan Cup
5 days
Rogue vs Percival
Wardi Open
6 days
Monday Night Weeklies
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
The PondCast
6 days
Kung Fu Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Escore Tournament S2: W7
2026 GSL S1
Nations Cup 2026

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
ASL Season 21
IPSL Spring 2026
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 2
Acropolis #4
KK 2v2 League Season 1
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
YSL S3
SCTL 2026 Spring
RSL Revival: Season 5
Heroes Pulsing #1
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S2: W8
CSCL: Masked Kings S4
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Maestros of the Game 2
WardiTV Spring 2026
2026 GSL S2
Bounty Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.