• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 11:34
CEST 17:34
KST 00:34
  • 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
ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play1Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection7Code S Season 2 (2026) - RO8 Preview8
Community News
Weekly Cups (June 22-28): Zergs thrive in new patch0[TLMC] Summer 2026 Ladder Map Rotation05.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)90ZeroSpace at Steam NextFest - Last free demo40Weekly Cups (June 8-14): Clem and Solar double, PTR tested0
StarCraft 2
General
Is the larve respawn broken? 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start) Weekly Cups (June 22-28): Zergs thrive in new patch The Death of Cheese: From a Professional Cheeser Old Replays From 1.4.6
Tourneys
Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule ! Douyu Cup 2026: $20,000 Legends Event (June 26-28) RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event INu's Battles#17 <BO.9> Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate Work In Progress Melee Maps [D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 532 Nuclear Family Mutation # 531 Experimental Artillery Mutation # 530 One For All
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion ASL 22 Proposed Map Pool Best thing happen to StarCraft since Remastered? ProGamer Paychecks Story Data needed
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL21] Grand Finals The Casual Games of the Week Thread [BSL22] GosuLeague Casts - Tue & Thu 22:00 CEST
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Creating a full chart of Zerg builds Relatively freeroll strategies Why doesn't anyone use restoration?
Other Games
General Games
ZeroSpace at Steam NextFest - Last free demo Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
[94721]Better Good-Health Signs Than 3-15 Bans/Yea TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread The Games Industry And ATVI Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine
Fan Clubs
The HerO Fan Club! The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books [TV/BOOK] *SPOILERS* Game of Thrones Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion McBoner: A hockey love story Cricket [SPORT]
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Listen To The Coaches!
TrAiDoS
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
I'm an arrogant trash talke…
FlaShFTW
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 12032 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
Next event in 1h 26m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Serral 2415
Harstem 184
trigger 75
RushiSC 20
Codebar 10
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 3246
Jaedong 1004
Britney 959
EffOrt 663
ggaemo 418
firebathero 320
Mong 144
Snow 141
Leta 117
actioN 109
[ Show more ]
Dewaltoss 95
hero 93
Sea.KH 86
Free 64
ToSsGirL 56
[sc1f]eonzerg 48
scan(afreeca) 46
Pusan 46
sorry 38
Movie 36
Killer 34
Aegong 33
JYJ 25
Rock 22
Bale 20
Sacsri 18
yabsab 16
IntoTheRainbow 15
Terrorterran 14
zelot 13
GoRush 12
Purpose 11
Dota 2
qojqva2409
Dendi1379
Fuzer 340
Counter-Strike
kRYSTAL_61
Heroes of the Storm
Trikslyr38
Other Games
singsing3138
B2W.Neo927
FrodaN850
crisheroes298
Mew2King57
fpsfer 1
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream361
Other Games
BasetradeTV145
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• StrangeGG 86
• intothetv
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• mYiSmile10
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV429
League of Legends
• Nemesis4209
• TFBlade880
Other Games
• Shiphtur266
Upcoming Events
RSL Revival
1h 26m
Bombastic Starleague
4h 26m
PiGosaur Cup
8h 26m
Kung Fu Cup
19h 26m
Replay Cast
1d 8h
CrankTV Team League
1d 19h
Bombastic Starleague
2 days
The PondCast
2 days
HomeStory Cup
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
[ Show More ]
HomeStory Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
HomeStory Cup
4 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
WardiTV Weekly
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-06-29
Douyu Cup 2026
Murky Cup 2026

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
CSCL: Masked Kings S4
YSL S3
CSL Season 21: Qualifier 2
SCTL 2026 Spring
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
IEM Rio 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
ASL Season 22:Wild Card Qualifier
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
HSC XXIX
BCC 2026
Light Tournament 2026
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
Eternal Conflict S2 E1
Heroes Pulsing #3
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 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.