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HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon (archive) (4 Viewers)

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braintic

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

27 unit-cubes are assembled into a single 3-by-3-by-3 cube.
The surface of this larger cube is painted red.
The cube falls apart, and a blind man reassembles it.
What is the probability that the reassembled cube again has its entire surface painted red?
 

KingOfActing

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

27 unit-cubes are assembled into a single 3-by-3-by-3 cube.
The surface of this larger cube is painted red.
The cube falls apart, and a blind man reassembles it.
What is the probability that the reassembled cube again has its entire surface painted red?
Is the answer ? If that's right I'll edit in my though process :p
 

braintic

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

Is the answer ? If that's right I'll edit in my though process :p
I found this question on an online forum and they had no definitive answer.
But I have worked out an answer that is about 10 to the power of 20 smaller than yours!
I believe those factorials you have should actually be in the numerator. And don't forget you have to take into account the orientation of each cube - just because a cube is in the right position doesn't mean its red faces are facing outwards.

I'll give you my simplified answer (so it doesn't give an indication of my logic):

(6!8!12!)/(27! times 24^18)

It is the 24^18 which has been simplified.

(Not 100% sure it is right, but pretty confident yours isn't)
 

Paradoxica

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

I found this question on an online forum and they had no definitive answer.
But I have worked out an answer that is about 10 to the power of 20 smaller than yours!
I believe those factorials you have should actually be in the numerator. And don't forget you have to take into account the orientation of each cube - just because a cube is in the right position doesn't mean its red faces are facing outwards.

I'll give you my simplified answer (so it doesn't give an indication of my logic):

(6!8!12!)/(27! times 24^18)

(Not 100% sure it is right, but pretty confident yours isn't)
Care to state the forum?

If they couldn't arrive at a consensus what makes you think we will?

I personally want to find the experimental probability but I don't have the programming knowledge for it. It's been a while.
 

braintic

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

Care to state the forum?

If they couldn't arrive at a consensus what makes you think we will?

I personally want to find the experimental probability but I don't have the programming knowledge for it. It's been a while.
I'm afraid I can't remember exactly where I found it.
But if my answer is correct (and I am reasonably confident it is) then you would need to run a simulation about 10^37 times just to get one success.
How long are you planning on living?
 

Paradoxica

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

I'm afraid I can't remember exactly where I found it.
But if my answer is correct (and I am reasonably confident) then you would need to run a simulation about 10^37 times just to get one success. How long are you planning on living?
Until the end of time.
 

KingOfActing

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

The way I got that was - i.e. choose 8 corners, 12 sides and 6 centers but I feel like I'm missing lots :p
 

InteGrand

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

The way I got that was - i.e. choose 8 corners, 12 sides and 6 centers but I feel like I'm missing lots :p
You would need to account for making sure the cubelets are rotated the correct way too (so that their painted faces are outside).
 

braintic

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

The way I got that was - i.e. choose 8 corners, 12 sides and 6 centers but I feel like I'm missing lots :p
As I said, you're not accounting for the different orientations of the cubes.
Any cube can be oriented in 24 ways.
Only 3 of those ways will cause a corner cube to have its red faces on the outside.
2 of those ways will cause an edge cube to have its red faces on the outside.
4 of those ways will cause a face-centre cube to have its red faces on the outside.
 

Paradoxica

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Re: HSC 2016 MX2 Combinatorics Marathon

Consider an alphabet with n different available letters.

Let P(k) be the number of ways you can use exactly k different letters in an n letter word.

i) Explain why




ii) Show that



Let the Score of a word, X, be defined as 1/(1+#(X)), where #(X) is the number of letters that were not used by the word X.

iii) Show that the sum of all the Scores, S, over all possible n letter words, is given by:




iv) Hence, evaluate S in closed form.
 
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