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Practice Sheet 1

The document is a practice sheet for CS648: Randomized Algorithms at IIT Kanpur, containing various problems related to elementary probability and the linearity of expectation. It includes questions on expected values in different scenarios, such as throwing balls into bins, guessing cards, and analyzing random variables. The problems aim to enhance understanding of probabilistic concepts and their applications in randomized algorithms.

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12 views3 pages

Practice Sheet 1

The document is a practice sheet for CS648: Randomized Algorithms at IIT Kanpur, containing various problems related to elementary probability and the linearity of expectation. It includes questions on expected values in different scenarios, such as throwing balls into bins, guessing cards, and analyzing random variables. The problems aim to enhance understanding of probabilistic concepts and their applications in randomized algorithms.

Uploaded by

luaaannd
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CS648 : Randomized Algorithms

CSE, IIT Kanpur


Practice sheet 1: Elementary probability and linearity of expectation

1. Bins with i balls


We throw m balls randomly, uniformly, and independently into n bins. What is the expected
number of empty bins ? What is the expected number of bins containing exactly i balls.

2. Sum of samples
An urn contains n balls numbered 1,2,...,n. We remove k balls at random (without replacement)
and add up their numbers. Find the expected value of this final number.

3. Surviving couples
Of the 2n people in a given collection of n couples, exactly m die. Assuming that the m have been
picked at random, find the expected number of surviving couples.

4. Magnet blocks
A total of n bar magnets are placed end to end in a line with random independent orientations.
Adjacent like poles repel, ends with opposite polarities join to form blocks. Find the expected
number of blocks of joined magnets.

5. Stick break
Given a stick with n joints. The stick is dropped from certain height. During the fall, each joint
breaks with probability p independent of other joints. What is the expected number of pieces into
which the stick breaks ?

6. Memoryless Guessing
To amaze your friends, you have them shuffle a deck of n cards and then turn over one card at
a time. Before each card is turned over, you predict its identity. Unfortunately, you don’t have
any particular psychic abilities - and you are not good at remembering what has been turned over
already- so your strategy is simply to guess a card uniformly at random from the deck. What is
the expected number of correct predictions that you would make with this strategy ?

7. Guessing with memory


Now let us consider second scenario. Your psychic abilities have not developed any further since
last time, but you have become very good at remembering which cards have already been turned
over. Thus when you predict the next card now, you only guess uniformly from among the cards
not yet seen. What is the expected number of correct predictions that you would make with this
strategy ?

8. Expected value of product of random variables


Let X and Y be two independent random variables defined over a probability space (Ω, P ). Prove
that
E[X · Y ] = E[X] · E[Y ]
(you are advised to internalize the proof).

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9. Two urns with white and black balls
Urn 1 contains 1933 white and 2067 black balls, while urn 2 contains 191 white and 167 black balls.
43 balls are randomly selected from urn 1 and are then put in urn 2. If 46 balls are then randomly
selected from urn 2, compute the expected number of white balls in the trio.

10. Total displacement


Let a1 , a2 , . . . , an be a uniformly random permutation of {1, 2, . . . , n}. When sorting list a1 , a2 , . . . , an ,
the element ai must move a distance of |ai − i| places from its current position to reach its position
in sorted order. Find the expected total distance that all the elements will have to be moved during
sorting.

11. Conditional probability


Suppose that n balls are thrown independently and uniformly at random into n bins.

(a) Find the conditional probability that bin 1 has one ball given that exactly one ball fell into
the first three bins.
(b) Find the conditional probability that the number of balls in bin 1 is 2 under the condition that
bin 2 received n/2 balls.
(c) What is the conditional probability that nth bin is empty given that the bins numbered 1 to
n/2 are empty ?

12. Dependence among random variables


Recall the randomized quick sort algorithm. Let ei denote ith smallest element in the array. Let
Xij be the random variable which takes value 1 if ei is compared with ej , and zero otherwise.
Prove that the random variables {Xij |1 ≤ i < j ≤ n} are not independent. In more precise words,
demonstrate a few random variables from this set which are not independent.

13. Balls into bins


Recall the “balls into bins” experiment.

• Let Xi be the random variable which denote the number of balls choosing ith bin. Are
therandom variables Xi ’s independent ?

• Let Yi be the random variable which denotes the destination bin for ith ball. Are the
randomvariables Yi ’s independent ?

14. Recall Frievald’s algorithm for checking equality A × B = C. We selected a random {0,1}-vector:
each entry was selected randomly uniformlyindependently from {0, 1}. The error probability was
bounded by 2 essentially because there were 2 choices. What is wrong with the following arguments
?
Select a random vector wherein each entry is a real number selected randomly uniformly and in-
dependently from [0, 1]. The error probability of the algorithm will be 0. In this manner we get
adeterministic algorithm for the problem !

15. Red-blue balls


There is a bag containing r red balls and b blue balls. We take out balls one by one, uniformly
randomly and throw them away. During each step, every ball present in the bag is equally likely to
be removed. What is the expected number of red balls left after all the blue balls have been
takenout ?

16. Randomized binary search tree


We know various height balanced binary search trees (Red-Black trees or AVL trees). Each of
these trees keep an additional balance field in each node. We also know that the procedure to keep
the tree balanced is quite tedious (it takes 1 or 2 lectures to explain all cases for insertions and
deletions). Here is a randomized variant of binary search tree.

2
Let S be the set of elements for which we wish to build a binary search tree. Build the tree
incrementally as follows: Select and remove a uniformly random element from S and make it the
root. Now repeat the following step until S becomes empty: Select and remove a randomly and
uniformly selected element from S and insert it into the present binary search tree.

• Prove that the expected depth (distance from the root) of each element in the tree will be
O(log n).

17. A random prime number


Design a Las Vegas algorithm that takes a number n as input and outputs a prime number from the
interval [n, 2n]. The expected running time of the algorithm has to be polynomial of the input size.
You might like to know the famous result from IITK about prime numbers to solve this problem.

18. Problem of an equation


p is a prime number. Let a1 , . . . , an be some integers in the range [1, p − 1]. Let X1 , ..., Xn be
n random variables each taking integer value uniformly and independently in the range [0, p − 1].
What is the probability that the following equation holds ?
X
( ai Xi ) mod p = 0
i

Note: There are a few questions in this sheet which were asked during the lectures.

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