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From: eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Pistachio Probabilities
Message-ID: <285@ihnet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 10:56:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnet.285
Posted: Thu Aug 22 10:56:54 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 17:56:46 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 19

< literally, munch! >

	You people are going to start thinking I am weird.
While eating pistachios last night, I noticed some of them were unopenable
(using the simple fingernail method).  These, I simply tossed back into the
bag, only to run across them later.
So, another useless irrelevant question was born!!!
Suppose you begin with a bag containing O openable pistachios,
and U unopenable pistachios.  A trial consists of selecting a nut at random,
and eating it (if possible), or returning it to the bag.
How many trials, on the average, are required to consume all the "openable"
pistachios?  Express the answer in terms of U and O.
Any ideas on the variance/distribution of trials(U,O)?
Although I have not given this problem a lot of thought (yet),
it looks surprisingly difficult.
The pistachios, by the way, were delicious.
-- 
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		Karl Dahlke    ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad