Related papers: When Rooks Miss: Probability through Chess
Given an initial configuration of pebbles on a graph, one can move pebbles in pairs along edges, at the cost of one of the pebbles moved, with the objective of reaching a specified target vertex. The pebbling number of a graph is the…
We study short intervals which contain an ``almost square'', an integer $n$ that can be factored as $n = ab$ with $a$, $b$ close to $\sqrt{n}$. This is related to the problem on distribution of $n^2 \alpha \pmod 1$ and the problem on gaps…
We introduce a two-player game in which one and his/her opponent attempt to pack as many ``prisoners'' as possible on the squares of an n-by-n checkerboard; each prisoner has to be ``protected'' by at least as many guards as the number of…
The prospects of Kahneman and Tversky, Mega Million and Powerball lotteries, St. Petersburg paradox, premature profits and growing losses criticized by Livermore are reviewed under an angle of view comparing mathematical expectations with…
Suppose an interval is put on a horizontal line with random roughness. With probability one it is supported at two points, one from the left, and another from the right from its center. We compute probability distribution of support points…
We introduce consecutive equi-$n$-squares, a variant of equi-$n$-squares in which at least one row or column forms a fixed permutation of $\{1,\dots,n\}$, taken for concreteness to be $(1,\dots,n)$. More generally, the enumeration and…
Many high-stakes AI deployments proceed only if every stakeholder deems the system acceptable relative to their own minimum standard. With randomization over a finite menu of options, this becomes a feasibility question: does there exist a…
In this paper we answer a question posed by R. Stanley in his collection of Bijection Proof Problems (Problem 240). We present a bijective proof for the enumeration of walks of length $k$ a chess rook can move along on an $m\times n$ board…
We introduce a quantitative framework for separating skill and chance in games by modeling them as complementary sources of control over stochastic decision trees. We define the Skill-Luck Index S(G) in [-1, 1] by decomposing game outcomes…
For two collections of nonnegative and suitably normalised weights $\W=(\W_j)$ and $\V=(\V_{n,k})$, a probability distribution on the set of partitions of the set $\{1,...,n\}$ is defined by assigning to a generic partition $\{A_j, j\leq…
It is well-known that pure quantum states are typically almost maximally entangled, and thus have close to maximally mixed subsystems. We consider whether this is true for probabilistic theories more generally, and not just for quantum…
We give sharp, uniform estimates for the probability that a random walk of n steps on the reals avoids a half-line [y,infinity) given that it ends at the point x. The estimates hold for general continuous or lattice distributions provided…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. A ordered deck of n cards labeled 1 up to n is riffle-shuffled exactly one time. Then, the goal of the game is to maximize the number of correct guesses of the cards, where one after…
In this paper, we address the risk estimation problem where one aims at estimating the probability of violation of safety constraints for a robot in the presence of bounded uncertainties with arbitrary probability distributions. In this…
The principle that rational agents should maximize expected utility or choiceworthiness is intuitively plausible in many ordinary cases of decision-making under uncertainty. But it is less plausible in cases of extreme, low-probability risk…
Given a graph G with n vertices and k players, each of which is placing a facility on one of the vertices of G, we define the score of the i'th player to be the number of vertices for which, among all players, the facility placed by the…
Permanents of random matrices with independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) entries have extensively studied in literature and convergence and concentration properties are known under varying assumptions on the distributions. In…
Consider a gambling game in which we are allowed to repeatedly bet a portion of our bankroll at favorable odds. We investigate the question of how to minimize the expected number of rounds needed to increase our bankroll to a given target…
In the open circular billiard particles are placed initially with a uniform distribution in their positions inside a planar circular vesicle. They all have velocities of the same magnitude, whose initial directions are also uniformly…
We consider the Last-Success-Problem with $n$ independent Bernoulli random variables with parameters $p_i>0$. We improve the lower bound provided by F.T. Bruss for the probability of winning and provide an alternative proof to the one given…