Sticky Maths Problem: REP FOR SOLUTION

Posted in the Academic subform. Too little traffic.

I have a rather sticky problem which I might tantalize the intelligentia of the forum. Rep for helping.

There are 2 people, who want to meet up. Between the hours of 6.oopm to 7.oo pm (ie. 1 hour). Each will stay for 5 minutes before going away. So, they must meet each other within the 5 minutes.

They will both arrive at random times between the hours of 6-7pm.

So, what is the probability of them meeting together?

Posted in the Academic subform. Too little traffic.

I have a rather sticky problem which I might tantalize the intelligentia of the forum. Rep for helping.

There are 2 people, who want to meet up. Between the hours of 6.oopm to 7.oo pm (ie. 1 hour). Each will stay for 5 minutes before going away. So, they must meet each other within the 5 minutes.

They will both arrive at random times between the hours of 6-7pm.

So, what is the probability of them meeting together?

I checked with someone else and they said it was 1/144 as well.

Oh, tell me who. I know for a fact that ?/144 is teh correct answer. But I was more think about (5/12)^2. Do you have any Maths peeps in your uni accomadtion area?

Just asked someone else online so not particularly accurate! If it was 5/12 x 5/12 then it would be 25/144 which surely is too high a probability?

Hmm, but the longest time period possible for a meeting is 9.9999 minutes, as one person just catches the waiting one at the end of his waiting period.

And that is 1/6 of the time from 6-7pm.

I think you'll find that it is 1/210. I could be wrong, but I just did it long hand match up and it seems to work.

I think you'll find that it is 1/210. I could be wrong, but I just did it long hand match up and it seems to work.

Hmm, but the longest time period possible for a meeting is 9.9999 minutes, as one person just catches the waiting one at the end of his waiting period.

And that is 1/6 of the time from 6-7pm.

wouldn't it be 4.999?

I know what you mean, but isn't that an obscure way of looking at it. the simple method just looks at the chance of two people meeting in a particular time period. unless it's some calculation for a degree or something, all other ways of working it out seem over-complicated.

Can you show me the working out and the train of thought please, cheers.

Posted in the Academic subform. Too little traffic.

I have a rather sticky problem which I might tantalize the intelligentia of the forum. Rep for helping.

There are 2 people, who want to meet up. Between the hours of 6.oopm to 7.oo pm (ie. 1 hour). Each will stay for 5 minutes before going away. So, they must meet each other within the 5 minutes.

They will both arrive at random times between the hours of 6-7pm.

So, what is the probability of them meeting together?

Well, apparently it is very complicated, but the teacher did give me a clue. He said to try and draw an array type. ie time on x axis. I first thought of like an area type graph, and then intergrating it. But it is supposedly much more simple than that.

this thread discrimintaes against people who are crap at maths (like me)

Right. Draw two lines of three dots running parallel to each other on a piece of paper. Then using the right hand side. Match all three on the right hand side to the bottom left one. That gives you three. Now do the same to the middle left one, and the upper left one. You should have nine matches. Now reverse it, but take into account any match ups that have occurred and discount this. In all you should have 12 possible match ups. I just did this with 12 match ups as there are 12 lots of 5 in 60minutes. I'm pretty damn sure I got it right.