Slippy:
Breakfast:
The expected number of binomial trials is:
1/(4/4) +1/(3/4) + 1/(2/4) + 1/(1/4)
First; if the probability of an event happening is p then the mean number of trials to obtain a success is 1/p.
Code:
Number Probability
of of
Trials Success
------ -----------
1 p
2 pq
3 pq2
4 pq3
. .
. .
. .
Since there must eventually be a success the sum of probabilities is:
p + pq + pq^2 + pq^3 + ... = 1.
The mean number of trials (m) is: m = p + 2pq + 3pq^2 + 4pq^3 + ...
mq = pq + 2pq^2 + 3pq^3 + ...
m-qm= p + pq + pq^2 + pq^3 + ...
m(1-q) = 1.
m = 1/(1-q) = 1/p.
Second, the answer to the problem can be express as the sum of the following:
Number of trials to get a first toy
Number of trials to get a second toy once you have one toy
Number of trials to get a third toy once you have two toys
Number of trials to get the final toy once you have three toys
The number of trials to get one toy is obviously one.
Once you have one the probability of getting a different toy in the next box is 3/4, thus the expected number of trials is 1/(3/4) = 4/3 to get the second toy.
By the same logic the number of trials to get the third is 1/(1/2)=2 and 1/(1/4)=4 for the final toy.
Summing these yields 1 + 4/3 + 2 + 4 = 25/3 = ~ 8.333 .
Slippy continues:
"
Guilty as charged
Take the p below"
The Poem -
JENTACULAR (jen-TACK-you-lur). adj. Pertaining to breakfast:
Think back to the time before puffing and popping,
When grains weren't re-processed with no signs of stopping,
With "froot" as a flavor and "frost" for a topping . . .
Yes, long before Graham and Kellogg and Post,
When omelets were omelets and toast was just toast,
And foods had no four-color animal host . . .
When wheat wasn't shaped into "sixers" or hexes,
When nobody knew what a "Trix" or a "Chex" is---
A time, when, in fact, people used fewer Xes . . .
When boxes were plain?-bearing no toy surprise,
Or mazes in colors that wearied the eyes,
Or facts on each flap on the good x supplies . . .
It must have been nice
To simply eat rice
That never exploded or gave you advice.
Big Cereal now, with the cunning of Dracular,
?'S become a dark blotch that's increasingly macular.
I long for a meal that is merely jentacular!
In fact, I would fall
To my knees and then crawl
For a breakfast that sits and does nothing at all.
AORIGL
PAPPLEAR