Student Puzzle Corner
Anirban DasGupta describes this problem as a blend of calculus and probability:
All of you know that for any given positive number α, α1/n → 1 as n → ∞. How large an n does it take to get very close to 1 if we choose α randomly? Here is…
Anirban DasGupta says this problem seems impossible at first sight, but thinks you will probably arrive at a solution quickly and it might surprise some of you that this is possible. This is the kind of thing statistics students used to learn routinely forty or fifty years ago. The problem…
Deadline: April 25, 2021
Puzzle Editor Anirban DasGupta proposes a palindrome problem in the domain of probabilistic number theory. It will take careful thinking and patience to work out the more difficult parts of this problem. I try to give you hints, as you move from one part to the…
The puzzle was this maximum likelihood estimation problem in a badminton game.
Student Puzzle Editor Anirban DasGupta explains the solution:
For part (a), writing q for p2 = cp, the likelihood function is
((1 − p)p4q4)(p4q3(1 − q))((1 − q))(q3p2(1 − p))(p5q4(1 − q))
= p29(1 − p)2(1 −…
Student Puzzle Editor Anirban DasGupta writes:
Our respondent Raimundo Julian Saona Urmeneta, who is a PhD student at the Institute of Science and Technology in Austria, has done a lovely and complete job of solving the previous puzzle. Congratulations to Raimundo. We are publishing his answer [below] as…