Absent-Minded Passengers. Issue 10 (26th November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Henze, Norbert; Last, Günter
• Is Part Of: American Mathematical Monthly. Volume 126:Issue 10(2019)
• Page Start: 867
• Page End: 875
• Publication Date: 2019-11-26
• Subjects: MSC: Primary 60C05 -- Secondary 60F05 -- 00A08; Mathematics -- Periodicals; 510.5
• DOI: 10.1080/00029890.2019.1656024
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-9890

Abstract

Abstract: Passengers board a fully booked airplane in order. The first passenger picks one of the seats at random. Each subsequent passenger takes his or her assigned seat if available, otherwise takes one of the remaining seats at random. It is well known that the last passenger obtains her own seat with probability 1/2. We study the distribution of the number of incorrectly seated passengers, and we also discuss the case of several absent-minded passengers.