spread the rumour

consider a town with n people.
a person spreads a rumour to a second,who in turn repeats it to a third and so on.suppose that at each stage,the recipient of the rumour is chosen at random from the remaining (n-1) people.
what is the probability that the rumour will be repeated n times (i)without being repeated to any person
(ii)without being repeated to the originator

12 Answers

1
Philip Calvert ·

i) \frac{(n-1)!}{(n-1)^n} ?

1
Arshad ~Died~ ·

no

39
Dr.House ·

ii)

the originator has (n-1) chioces and all (n-1) others have (n-2) choices.

so no:of ways it can be done is

(n-1)(n-2)(n-1)

total no: of ways =(n-1)n

so probability = [(n-2)/(n-1)](n-1)

1
Arshad ~Died~ ·

thank u b555....
wow its the first time someone replied correctly to a question at
01:02 am....

:-)

39
Dr.House ·

time never matters if u have the knowledge :)

1
Arshad ~Died~ ·

thats very correctly said dude...

1
Arshad ~Died~ ·

everyone forgot the first one???

106
Asish Mahapatra ·

i think (i) is zero because for n repetitions of the rumour, there need to be n+1 people without any people getting repeated.

So there is no case that the rumour will be repeated n times without being repeated to any person

Consider a simple ex.

there are 5 people

1-->2 --> 3-->4 -->5 so without repetition of people there are 4 repetitions of the rumour i.e. (n-1)

So the prob. is zero

if u count 5-->1 as a repetition then look below

1
Arshad ~Died~ ·

nishant sir,kaymant sir or prophet sir can u pls justify asish's answer because i dont have the answer to this question
pls

106
Asish Mahapatra ·

oh.. yes i assumed that since 1 knows it, it will be considered as a repetition.

In that case, it will be (n-1)(n-1)(n-3)!(n-1)n

this is bcz, the first person has (n-1) ways so has the second person but then the third has (n-3) ways and this keeps on decreasing by one

1
Arshad ~Died~ ·

this ones got me too confused......

62
Lokesh Verma ·

I go with the first answer of asish.. which is zero..

To be mreo clear we need the question to mention what "repeat" means.. To me what asish has doen there makes a lot of sense..

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