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Puzzle ZJRY 



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How many people must be at a party before you are likely to have two having the same birthday (but not necessarily the same year)?

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Answer
23.

Reasoning
By likely, we mean greater than 50% chance.

With one person there is a 0 percent chance that you'll have two people with the same birthday.

With two people the probability that they won't share a birthday is 364 / 365. The probability that they will share a birthday is therefore 1 - (364 / 365).

With three people the probability that they won't share a birthday is the same as for two people, times 363 / 365. So the probability that three people will share a birthday is 1 - (364 / 365) x (363 / 365).

Notice that with each additional person added, the probability that they shares a birthday with one of the previous persons goes up, because there are fewer "free" days remaining.

We keep adding people until the %age is greater than 50%.

When we have 23 people the %age is 50.729%.

 

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