Spoilers for Tuesday 22nd January 2008
Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:54 pm
Did DECANTERS really come out backwards, I wasn't paying attention.
Joseph.
Joseph.
A group for contestants and lovers of the Channel 4 game show 'Countdown'.
http://c4countdown.co.uk/
What are the actual odds of that happening? How would you work that out exactly?metalized_deionizer wrote:Yes. And I started thinking about permutations and the odds of it happening, when I realized I've wondered the same thing. Making me think it's happened before.
I'll set the problem. Given the letters have been selected, find the probability the words DECANTERS is spelt backwards.JBolas wrote:What are the actual odds of that happening? How would you work that out exactly?metalized_deionizer wrote:Yes. And I started thinking about permutations and the odds of it happening, when I realized I've wondered the same thing. Making me think it's happened before.
Also, many contestants choose their letters in blocks of vowels and consonants, making it unlikely that anything sensible is going to emerge.Janowsky wrote:It gets more complicated when you try to work out the odds of the word SRETNACED coming out in that order on the show because you have to factor in the tile distributions.
Blimey Conor, how old are you again?! *bows down"Conor wrote:I'll set the problem. Given the letters have been selected, find the probability the words DECANTERS is spelt backwards.JBolas wrote:What are the actual odds of that happening? How would you work that out exactly?metalized_deionizer wrote:Yes. And I started thinking about permutations and the odds of it happening, when I realized I've wondered the same thing. Making me think it's happened before.
There is only one solution SRETNACED, out of 9!/2! (9 letters, but there are 2 Es) = 1/181440.
16. But it's not a very difficult problem once you've simplified it to that, it's just some arrangements maths.juj wrote: Blimey Conor, how old are you again?! *bows down"
Indeed this problem proved too complicated for me. I have no understanding of arrangements or combinations. I know how to calculate factorials and know how to calculate something such as 7C2 but giving me a wordy problem and asking how many different arrangements, I wouldn't know where to start. Nobody has been able to explain it to me - which really p***es me off.Charlie Reams wrote:I agree that it's not that hard but in fairness, an equivalent problem recently proved too difficult for K. Bevins BSc Maths (Hons).