Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 ia Paper 2 3F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
For events with , the conditional probability is . Applying the definition in both orders gives Bayes theorem:Conditionally on , independent fair tosses give a binomial distribution for the head count, so . The joint probability mass function is consequentlyUse the law of total probability and the differentiated geometric series, , to obtain . The posterior coin count after exactly one head is thereforeThese probabilities sum to one by the same series identity. The conditioning weights possible coin counts by their likelihood of producing exactly one head.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 32 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the standard infinite-population slotted ALOHA model with independent fresh arrivals with Poisson distribution , . Newly arrived packets attempt in the next slot. Given old backlogged packets, each independently attempts with fixed probability , so the retransmission count has binomial distribution , independent of and earlier random choices. Let record whether is zero, one, or at least two. A single transmission succeeds and departs; a collision makes every transmitted packet remain. ThereforeOnly the present backlog determines the law of the next independent choices, so is a time-homogeneous Markov chain.
For , put and , with . Its nonzero transition probabilities areFor example, a single fresh arrival leaves the backlog unchanged only if no old packet transmits; if an old packet also transmits, that fresh arrival becomes a new backlogged packet. These cases explain the extra diagonal term and the suppressed one-step increase at . At the same formulas hold with , and for .
Here is an almost-sure proof of permanent collisions in constant-probability slotted ALOHA for , rather than just a positive-drift heuristic. For , the conditional exponential increment isAs this tends to a number strictly below one. Choose so the expression is at most one for . Stopping when the chain first enters gives a nonnegative supermartingale. Downward jumps have size at most one, so it hits at . Optional sampling theorem for a supermartingale, first at bounded times and then by a limit, yields the exponential-supermartingale escape boundThis is an irreducible Markov chain: every positive state can successively decrease to zero, and from zero Poisson batches reach every state at least two, with state one then reached from two. An irreducible recurrent Markov chain would hit that finite set with probability one from every state, contradicting the bound. Hence every state is a transient state, every finite set is visited only finitely often, and almost surely.
The conditional success probability is . The centered success indicators form a martingale difference sequence with bounded increments. The strong law for martingales with bounded increments givesThe conditional means have Cesàro average zero, while the strong law of large numbers gives . Therefore almost surely. Finallydecays exponentially along this linear backlog growth. Its sum over is almost surely finite. The Conditional Borel-Cantelli lemma then implies that only finitely many slots have zero or one transmission. Thus . At , a fresh batch of size at least two eventually occurs, after which at least two old packets retransmit in every slot, giving the same conclusion directly.
The qualification is essential: if , then depends only on the independent Poisson arrivals, and zero- or one-arrival slots occur infinitely often. Positive mean arrival rate alone, without the Poisson model or another assumption allowing collisions to develop, would also be insufficient: Bernoulli fresh arrivals and initial backlog zero never collide.
One alternative is binary exponential backoff: after collisions a packet selects a waiting time uniformly from and tries when its counter expires. Its attempt behavior depends on its collision history, rather than a common constant . Another possibility, if a backlog estimate is available, is to set the attempt probability near , keeping the offered retransmission count near one. These descriptions illustrate adaptive access rules; they do not assert that every backoff variant is stable at arbitrary load.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 41 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The two independent binomial distributions give fitted event probabilities and . Their odds ratio and log odds ratio areUsing the log odds ratio variance from a two-by-two table,The stated normal approximation and quantile approximately two give the confidence intervalExponentiation gives the corresponding odds ratio interval . Its lower endpoint exceeds one.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 9 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
It suffices to prove the assertion after replacing by : that replacement gives a tighter interval. Thus assume and , and putAt , let count isolated vertices in . The same indicator random variable calculation as for all isolated vertices givesBy the Chebyshev inequality, with high probability. Since eventually, the marked vertices are then not all connected.
At , the logarithmic-regime giant component result applies with and any fixed . Its unique giant component misses vertices. On the event that it misses at most twice that number, exchangeability makes the missed vertex set uniform conditional on its size. A union bound therefore givesThus all of is connected at with high probability.
For the uniform random graph process, assign uniform labels to the edges of the complete graph as independent random variables and reveal them in label order. The binomial random graph is the prefix containing the labels at most , where has a binomial distribution with parameters and . Its variance at is , whereas the gap between and the relevant endpoint is . The Chebyshev inequality gives and with high probability, with harmless integer rounding. The monotone graph property that all marked vertices are connected now impliesThe marked-set connectivity threshold is lower than the threshold for connecting every vertex, because only about specified vertices need to avoid the small graph components.