Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/ia/paper-2/9f/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ia Paper 2 9F Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The inclusion-exclusion principle givesFor the coat problem, all permutations are equally likely. If a specified set of people gets its own coats, the other coats can be assigned in ways, so that intersection has probability . Taking the complement of the union of correct-coat events gives the derangement probabilityTo have exactly fixed coats, choose their recipients and derange all remaining coats. Thus the fixed point count of a uniform random permutation hasand zero probability outside this range. The empty permutation has , so the formula includes ; it also gives zero for , since a lone remaining coat cannot be misplaced.
For fixed , , and the exponential series givesThese are the probabilities of a Poisson distribution of mean one. The limit is for fixed , not for increasing with .
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