MACM 201 - D100 AND D200 A SSIGNMENT #3

Instructions

Answer all questions on paper or a tablet using your own handwriting. Please number each page. Include a
cover page with your name, student ID number and a list of the questions you answered. If you use paper make
a photo of each page and upload your solutions to crowdmark. If you use a tablet, export your assignment to
.pdf and upload the .pdf to crowdmark.

Textbook Reading

• Section: 3.7 – we will not cover variance

Definitions, Concepts & Keywords

• Random variables, expected value, the bins and balls problem.

Exercises

A. Textbook Questions
Section 3.7 Exercise 2.
Section 10.1 Exercises 1, 2.
Section 10.2 Exercise 1(abd), 4.
B. Instructors Questions
1. Suppose John tosses a coin 5 times. Let X be the number of heads.
Calculate P r(X = x) for x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and find E(X).
2. (a) Let X be a random variable and a be a constant. Show that E(aX) = aE(X).
Follow the proof that E(X + Y ) = E(X) + E(Y ) given in class.
(b) Let X and Y be two random variables. Suppose we know E(X) = 7 and E(Y ) = 3.
Let Z = X − Y be a random variable. What is E(Z)? Justify your answer.
3. Suppose we toss 5 balls into 5 bins randomly. Let X be the number of balls in a bin.
(a) Determine the probability X is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 balls.
(b) Calculate E(X). You should get 1.
4. Suppose we toss m balls into n bins randomly.
Let X be the expected number of empty bins.
In class we showed that E(X) = n(1 − 1/n)m . For n = 10 and m = 5, 10, 20 calculate E(X).
For the case n = 10 and m = 20, interpret the result for E(X) (write one sentence in English to
explain what the result means).
5. Suppose we toss m balls into n bins randomly. Let X be the number of bins with exactly one
ball in them. Determine a formula for the probability p that a bin has one ball in it and then
calculate E(X), the expected number of bins with one ball. For m = n = 10 calculate p and E(X).
You should get p = 0.38742.
6. Consider the recurrence an+1 = 3an − an−1 with a1 = 1, a2 = 1. Calculate a0 , a3 , a4 .
7. Give an example of a first order non-homogenous recurrence relation and a second order homo-
geneous recurrence relation.
8. As I write this the number of people in India with the corona virus is 2.5 million. It is estimated
that each person who has the virus will, on average, infect 3 people in a week before recovering
or dying. Let in be the number of people infected after n weeks where i0 = 2.5 million. Give a
recurrence relation for in . How long will it take before 100 million are infected?

1
C OPYRIGHT J AMIE M ULHOLLAND AND M ICHAEL M ONAGAN
 MACM 201 - D100 AND D200 A SSIGNMENT #3

9. Below is C code for the Selectionsort algorithm. The input is an array A of n decimal numbers.
Line 10 sorts the first n − 1 numbers in A recursively.
1: void Selectionsort( double A[], int n ) {
2: // sort A[0],A[1],...,A[n-1] into ascending order
3: int i,m; double t;
4: if( n<=1 ) return; // A is already sorted
5: m = 0;
6: for( i=1; i<n; i++ )
7: if( A[i]>A[m] ) m = i;
8: // interchange A[i] and A[m]
9: t = A[i]; A[i] = A[m]; A[m] = t;
10: Selectionsort(A,n-1);
11: return;
12: }
Let cn be the number of comparisons between elements of A made in line 7. Give a recurrence
equation and an initial value for cn and solve it. Does Selectionsort do fewer or more comparisons
than Bubblesort?
Note: you do not need to know how an algorithm works in order to count the number of times it
executes a particular operation.
10. In a resort in Mexico guests may have dinner at three restaurants, the Italian restaurant, the
French restaurant or the Brazilian restaurant. Each evening you must eat at one of the restau-
rants but you may not eat at the French restaurant two nights in a row. Let dn be the number
of ways you may eat at the three restaurants over n evenings.
(a) How many eating choices are there for 1, 2 and 3 nights?
(b) Find a recurrence for dn .
(c) Using the recurrence relation, calculate d3 , d4 and d5 .
11. Consider the recurrence relation an = an−1 + An + B where A and B are constants. Solve the
recurrence with a1 = 1.
12. Solve the recurrence xn = xn−1 + 20xn−2 for n ≥ 2 with x0 = 5, x1 = −2.

2
C OPYRIGHT J AMIE M ULHOLLAND AND M ICHAEL M ONAGAN