6.042/18.

062J Mathematics for Computer Science December 14, 2004

Tom Leighton and Eric Lehman

Final Exam

YOUR NAME:

• You may use two 8.5×11” sheets with notes in your own handwriting on both sides,
but no other reference materials. Calculators are not allowed.

• You may assume all results presented in class.

• Write your solutions in the space provided. If you need more space, write on the
back of the sheet containing the problem. Please keep your entire answer to a prob­
lem on that problem’s page.

• Be neat and write legibly. You will be graded not only on the correctness of your
answers, but also on the clarity with which you express them.

GOOD LUCK!

Problem Points Grade Grader

1 13
2 15
3 12
4 12
5 12
6 12
7 12
8 12
Total 100
Final Exam 2

Problem 1. [13 points] Give an inductive proof that the Fibonacci numbers Fn and Fn+1
are relatively prime for all n ≥ 0. The Fibonacci numbers are defined as follows:

F0 = 0 F1 = 1 Fn = Fn−1 + Fn−2 (for n ≥ 2)

Final Exam 3

Problem 2. [15 points] The double of a graph G consists of two copies of G with edges
joining corresponding vertices. For example, a graph appears below on the left and its
double appears on the right.

Some edges in the graph on the right are dashed to clarify its structure.

(a) Draw the double of the graph shown below.

Final Exam 4

(b) Suppose that G1 is a bipartite graph, G2 is the double of G1 , G3 is the double of

G2 , and so forth. Use induction on n to prove that Gn is bipartite for all n ≥ 1.
Final Exam 5

Problem 3. [12 points] Finalphobia is a rare disease in which the victim has the delusion
that he or she is being subjected to an intense mathematical examination.

• A person selected uniformly at random has finalphobia with probability 1/100.

• A person with finalphobia has shaky hands with probability 9/10.

• A person without finalphobia has shaky hands with probability 1/20.

What is the probablility that a person selected uniformly at random has finalphobia, given
that he or she has shaky hands?
Final Exam 6

Problem 4. [12 points] Suppose that you roll five 6-sided dice that are fair and mutually
independent. For the problems below, answers alone are sufficient, but we can award par­
tial credit only if you show your work. Also, you do not need to simplify your answers;
you may leave factorials, binomial coefficients, and arithmetic expressions unevaluated.

(a) What is the probability that all five dice show different values?

Example: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is a roll of this type, but (1, 1, 2, 3, 4) is not.

(b) What is the probability that two dice show the same value and the remaining
three dice all show different values?
Example: (6, 1, 6, 2, 3) is a roll of this type, but (1, 1, 2, 2, 3) and (4, 4, 4, 5, 6) are not.

(c) What is the probability that two dice show one value, two different dice show a
second value, and the remaining die shows a third value?
Example: (6, 1, 2, 1, 2) is a roll of this type, but (4, 4, 4, 4, 5) and (5, 5, 5, 6, 6) are not.
Final Exam 7

Problem 5. [12 points] An electronic toy displays a 4 × 4 grid of colored squares. At all
times, four are red, four are green, four are blue, and four are yellow. For example, here
is one possible configuration:
� �

R B Y R
Y B G G
B R R G
B G Y Y
��
����
����
1 ��
�� 3 ��
2 �� 5
4 ��
� �

For parts (a) and (b) below, you need not simplify your answers.

(a) How many such configurations are possible?

(b) Below the display, there are five buttons numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The player
may press a sequence of buttons; however, the same button can not be pressed twice
in a row. How many different sequences of n button-presses are possible?
Final Exam 8

(c) Each button press scrambles the colored squares in a complicated, but nonran­
dom way. Prove that there exist two different sequences of 32 button presses that
both produce the same configuration, if the puzzle is initially in the state shown
above. (Hint: 432 = 1616 > 16!)
.
Final Exam 9

Problem 6. [12 points] MIT students sometimes delay laundry for a few days. Assume
all random values described below are mutually independent.

(a) A busy student must complete 3 problem sets before doing laundry. Each prob­
lem set requires 1 day with probability 2/3 and 2 days with probability 1/3. Let B
be the number of days a busy student delays laundry. What is Ex (B)?
Example: If the first problem set requires 1 day and the second and third problem
sets each require 2 days, then the student delays for B = 5 days.

(b) A relaxed student rolls a fair, 6-sided die in the morning. If he rolls a 1, then he
does his laundry immediately (with zero days of delay). Otherwise, he delays for
one day and repeats the experiment the following morning. Let R be the number of
days a relaxed student delays laundry. What is Ex (R)?
Example: If the student rolls a 2 the first morning, a 5 the second morning, and a 1
the third morning, then he delays for R = 2 days.
Final Exam 10

(c) Before doing laundry, an unlucky student must recover from illness for a number
of days equal to the product of the numbers rolled on two fair, 6-sided dice. Let U be
the expected number of days an unlucky student delays laundry. What is Ex (U )?
Example: If the rolls are 5 and 3, then the student delays for U = 15 days.

(d) A student is busy with probability 1/2, relaxed with probability 1/3, and unlucky
with probability 1/6. Let D be the number of days the student delays laundry. What
is Ex (D)? Leave your answer in terms of Ex (B), Ex (R), and Ex (U ).
Final Exam 11

Problem 7. [12 points] I have twelve cards:

1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6

I shuffle them and deal them in a row. For example, I might get:

1 2 3 3 4 6 1 4 5 5 2 6

What is the expected number of adjacent pairs with the same value? In the example, there
are two adjacent pairs with the same value, the 3’s and the 5’s.
We can award partial credit only if you show your work.
Final Exam 12

Problem 8. [12 points] Each time a baseball player bats, he hits the ball with some proba­
bility. The table below gives the hit probability and number of chances to bat next season
for five players.

player prob. of hit # chances to bat

Player A 1/3 300
Player B 1/4 200
Player C 1/4 400
Player D 1/5 250
Player E 2/5 500

(a) Let X be the total number times these five players hit the ball next season. What
is Ex (X)?

(b) Give a nontrivial upper bound on Pr (X ≥ 1500) and justify your answer. Do not
assume that hits happen mutually independently.
Final Exam 13

(c) Using a Chernoff inequality, give a nontrivial upper bound on Pr (X ≤ 400). For
this part, you may assume that all hits happen mutually independently.
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Fall 2010

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