If randomly picked from m symbols, each symbol being equally likely, how long on average would it take to pick m/2 different symbols?

powerinojSs

powerinojSs

Answered question

2022-11-23

If randomly picked from m symbols, each symbol being equally likely, how long on average would it take to pick m/2 different symbols?
Lets take the specific example of the English alphabet. In this case, I have 26 letters (symbols). Lets say these letters are plastic toys in a box. At random, I take one toy letter from the box, and write it down on a piece of paper. I then put that toy letter back into the box, and repeat the process. How many times, on average, would I have to repeat this process for my piece of paper to contain 13 of the 26 letters of the alphabet?
Is there a way to generalize the answer to m symbols instead of 26? What happens when m is odd?

Answer & Explanation

Shiloh Davenport

Shiloh Davenport

Beginner2022-11-24Added 9 answers

Step 1
The first pick from the box of 26 is guaranteed to produce a letter that you haven't drawn already. To get the second such letter requires on average 26 25 picks — close to one more, but a little bit more than that because you have a small chance of drawing the same letter as you did the first time. To get the third distinct letter requires on average 26 24 picks, and so on.
To pick at least k different elements from a box containing n different elements one expects to need a total of
1 1 + n n 1 + n n 2 + + n n k + 1 = n i = 1 k 1 n i + 1 picks.
Step 2
For your example of n = 26 , k = 13, this is approximately 17.5 picks.
You wanted to know what happens when k = n 2 . When n is not too small the number of picks required to get about n 2 different items can be shown to be approximately
0.69n
where 0.69 log 2. (To show this, write the formula above as
n i = 1 k 1 n i + 1 = n ( H n H n k )
where H i are the harmonic numbers, and use the approximation H n log n + γ)

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