Be honest, have you ever met someone, only to be shocked thatyou share the same birthday? We have all been there at one point oranother. Address this event with a measure of probability.
See, each semester I ask each of my classes of about 32face-to-face students the question, "What do you believe theprobability is that there exists a common birthday(s) among thosein this class?" After each person has the opportunity to consulthis or her neighbor, I proceed to write down the guesses on theboard. Those guesses often look something like this: 1%, 10%,25%,50%, 67%, 90% 100%. As we all know, only one of these can becorrect (if any).
Using your understanding of counting techniques and probability,investigate the answer to this question. What do you calculate tobe the true probability of such an event?
