Putting It Together
You are at the company picnic, and the boss divides everyone up to compete in a series of friendly competitions. The boss says that he has randomly chosen teams of six people, but the boss winds up on the same team as the five best athletes in the company. What are the odds of this happening by chance if there are ninety employees at the picnic? This is first a combination since order does not matter (i.e. the boss being the first person chosen on his team versus the last person chosen on his team does not matter. He is still on that team). The number of ways to choose 6 people from a 90 person group is:C(90, 6) = 622,614,630
The odds of any 6-person team existing is the same as any other 6-person team. So the odds of the boss winding up with the 5 most athletics players on his team by simply random selection is 1 in 622,614,630. Well, it’s pretty much a certainty that he rigged the teams, but hey, he’s your boss. So smile and enjoy playing for second place.Licenses & Attributions
CC licensed content, Original
- Authored by: Paul Jones and Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution.
