Quoth Klaus-Peter Schrage: > Tom Wilson wrote: > > > >Here in America, many states have what they call a Lotto. What happens > >is you go to a local convenience store and purchase a Lotto ticket for a > >US $1 a ticket. They usually have 6 numbers on them from 1 to 40 or > >so. Then once a week they draw numbers out of a contraption that has a > >bunch of numbered ping pong balls in it and you hope that the six you > >picked (or had randomly generated) on your ticket are the same six that > >pop up out of the ball machine. Is so you win the jackpot of generally > >some tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. > > > >Most people don't win. Thus you have to pretty lucky if you do. > > > The chances of winning aren't that bad: 1:3838380
Mm, my statistics is a little rusty, but wouldn't the chances be rather worse? Order matters, so we want permutations, not combinations. So, 40_P_6 = 40!/(40 - 6)! = 40!/34! = 2,763,633,000 40_C_6 = 40!/(6! * (40 - 6)!) = 40!/(6! * 34!) = 3,838,380 Kurt -- Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
