Related papers: An Elementary Analysis of the Probability That a B…

We revisit classic balancing problems for linear extensions of a partially ordered set $P$, proving results that go far beyond many of the best earlier results on this topic. For example, with $p(x\prec y)$ the probability that $x$ precedes…

Words of estimative probability (WEP) are expressions of a statement's plausibility (probably, maybe, likely, doubt, likely, unlikely, impossible...). Multiple surveys demonstrate the agreement of human evaluators when assigning numerical…

We study the persistence exponent for the first passage time of a random walk below the trajectory of another random walk. More precisely, let $\{B_n\}$ and $\{W_n\}$ be two centered, weakly dependent random walks. We establish that…

The probability of finding a prime multiplet, i.e., a sequence of primes $p$ and $p+a_i$, $i=1... m$, being all primes where $p$ is some prime less than the integer $n$ is naively $1/log(n)^{m+1}$. It is shown that, in reality, it is…

Probabilistic models for the distribution of primes in the natural numbers are constructed in the article. The author found and proved the probabilistic estimates of the deviation $R(x)=|\pi(x)- Li(x)|$. The author has analyzed the…

Let $X_1, X_2,\ldots, X_n$ be $n$ independent and identically distributed random variables, here $n \geq 2.$ Let $X_{(1)}, X_{(2)}, \ldots, X_{(n)}$ be the order statistics of $X_1, X_2,..., X_n.$ In this note we proved that: (I) If $X_1,…

A result of Chebyshev (1864) and Hoeffding1956}, on bounding an expectation of a given function with respect to a Bernoulli convolution (also called Poisson binomial law, or law of the number of successes in independent trials) with any…

Let us draw a graph R on {0,1,...,n-1} by having an edge {i,j} with probability p_(|i-j|), where sum_i p_i is finite and let M_n=(n,<,R). For a first order sentence psi let a^n_psi be the probability of ``M_n satisfies psi''. We prove that…

We study the setting in which the bits of an unknown infinite binary sequence x are revealed sequentially to an observer. We show that very limited assumptions about x allow one to make successful predictions about unseen bits of x. First,…

Let $N$ be a finite set, let $p \in (0,1)$, and let $N_p$ denote a random binomial subset of $N$ where every element of $N$ is taken to belong to the subset independently with probability $p$ . This defines a product measure $\mu_p$ on the…

Let $\mathbf{A}$ be an $n\times n$-matrix over $\mathbb{F}_2$ whose every entry equals $1$ with probability $d/n$ independently for a fixed $d>0$. Draw a vector $\mathbf{y}$ randomly from the column space of $\mathbf{A}$. It is a simple…

We study the probability that a random polynomial with integer coefficients is reducible when factored over the rational numbers. Using computer-generated data, we investigate a number of different models, including both monic and non-monic…

This paper deals with the problem of estimating the probability that one event was a cause of another in a given scenario. Using structural-semantical definitions of the probabilities of necessary or sufficient causation (or both), we show…

We show that if $f$ is the random completely multiplicative function, the probability that $\sum_{n\le x}\frac{f(n)}{n}$ is positive for every $x$ is at least $1-10^{-45}$, while also strictly smaller than $1$. For large $x$, we prove an…

We give an upper bound in O(d ^((n+1)/2)) for the number of critical points of a normal random polynomial with degree d and at most n variables. Using the large deviation principle for the spectral value of large random matrices we obtain…

Consider a binary tree, to the vertices of which are assigned independent Bernoulli random variables with mean $p\leq1/2$. How many of these Bernoullis one must look at in order to find a path of length $n$ from the root which maximizes, up…

We prove a conjecture that classifies exceptional numbers. This conjecture arises in two different ways, from cryptography and from coding theory. An odd integer $t\geq 3$ is said to be exceptional if $f(x)=x^t$ is APN (Almost Perfect…

In computational social choice, the distortion of a voting rule quantifies the degree to which the rule overcomes limited preference information to select a socially desirable outcome. This concept has been investigated extensively, but…

Let $ X_1, \ldots, X_n $ be independent random variables taking values in the alphabet $ \{0, 1, \ldots, r\} $, and $ S_n = \sum_{i = 1}^n X_i $. The Shepp--Olkin theorem states that, in the binary case ($ r = 1 $), the Shannon entropy of $…

For a set $A$ of $n$ people and a set $B$ of $m$ items, with each person having a preference list that ranks all items from most wanted to least wanted, we consider the problem of matching every person with a unique item. A matching $M$ is…