sultan kee beti kee shaadi

[mbamal]

A sultan has given an aam aadmi a choice to marry one of his 100 daghters. The commoner will be presented with the daughters one at a time and, when each daughter is presented, the commoner will be told the daughter's dowry (which is fixed in advance). Upon being presented with a daughter, the commoner must immediately decide whether to accept or reject her (he is not allowed to return to a previously rejected daughter). However, the sultan will allow the marriage to take place only if the commoner picks the daughter with the overall highest dowry. Then what is the commoner's best strategy, assuming he knows nothing about the distribution of dowries ??

[mbamal]

guys...kya hua...no one is interested in puzzles anymore

[rsdalal]

Bhai ya te ghanni kardee see lage se
....

Mandeep Bamal (Apr 25, 2003 01:05 p.m.):
guys...kya hua...no one is interested in puzzles anymore

[anujkumar]

best to nahee par good policy could be pahlee 50 ko reject maro and then select any record (heighest so far) dowry he gets..

[akdabas]

Mandeep brother,

Mujhe to lagta nahin kee us aam aadmi kee shadi hogi sultan kee beti te.

Sultan ne to bhot kasuta swamvar rach rakha se..... Ha..Ha...Ha........

[mbamal]

Since the commoner knows nothing about the distribution of the dowries, the best strategy is to wait until a certain number of daughters have been presented then pick the highest dowry thereafter. The exact number to skip is determined by the condition that the odds that the highest dowry has already been seen is just greater than the odds that it remains to be seen AND THAT IF IT IS SEEN IT WILL BE PICKED. This amounts to finding the smallest x such that:

x/n > x/n * (1/(x+1) + ... + 1/n).

Working out the math for n=100 and calculating the probability gives: The commoner should wait until he has seen 37 of the daughters, then pick the first daughter with a dowry that is bigger than any preceding dowry. With this strategy, his odds of choosing the daughter with the highest dowry are surprisingly high: about 37%

[dkumar]

arre mandeep bhai....seedha sada jawab sai iska to,..

commoner should start everyone after all shaadi to sultan ne highest wali ki hi karni hai....woh apne aap select ho javegi...

kyun thi hai na:)

[mbamal]

dhanesh bhai...baat to theek hai magar commoner ke pass bas ek shot hai...agar galat choice kar dee to uski shaadi nahin hogi ;)

[anujkumar]

arai mandeep mera jabab kaffi nazdeek thaa.. kuch bola kona us bare me...:(

[mbamal]

bhai anuj...sorry galti hogi...kaafi close tha bhai tera jawab bhi....balki main to yahin kahoonga kee...tera jawab baki sabme sabse nd tha....;)