Suppose families always have one, two, or three children, with probability ¼, ½, ¼ respectively. Assuming everyone eventually gets married and has children, what is the probability of a couple having exactly four grandchildren?

In Prime Land, there are seven major cities, labelled $C_0$, $C_1$, \dots, $C_6$. For convenience, we let $C_{n+7} = C_n$ for each $n=0,1,\dots,6$; i.e. we take the indices modulo $7$. Al initially starts at city $C_0$. Each minute for ten minutes, Al flips a fair coin. If the coin land heads, and he is at city $C_k$, he moves to city $C_{2k}$; otherwise he moves to city $C_{2k+1}$. If the probability that Al is back at city $C_0$ after $10$ moves is $\tfrac{m}{1024}$, find $m$. [i]Proposed by Ray Li[/i]

If you roll six fair dice, let $\mathsf{ p}$ be the probability that exactly five different numbers appear on the upper faces of the six dice. If $\mathsf{p} = \frac{m}{n}$ where $ m $ and $n$ are relatively prime positive integers, find $m+n.$

For every natural number $ t$, $ f(t)$ is the probability that if a fair coin is tossed $ t$ times, the number of times we get heads is 2008 more than the number of tails. What is the value of $ t$ for which $ f(t)$ attains its maximum? (if there is more than one, describe all of them)

[4] Let $D$ be the set of divisors of $100$. Let $Z$ be the set of integers between $1$ and $100$, inclusive. Mark chooses an element $d$ of $D$ and an element $z$ of $Z$ uniformly at random. What is the probability that $d$ divides $z$?

Wendy takes Honors Biology at school, a smallish class with only fourteen students (including Wendy) who sit around a circular table. Wendy's friends Lucy, Starling, and Erin are also in that class. Last Monday none of the fourteen students were absent from class. Before the teacher arrived, Lucy and Starling stretched out a blue piece of yarn between them. Then Wendy and Erin stretched out a red piece of yarn between them at about the same height so that the yarn would intersect if possible. If all possible positions of the students around the table are equally likely, let $m/n$ be the probability that the yarns intersect, where $m$ and $n$ are relatively prime positive integers. Compute $m+n$.

A knight is placed at the origin of the Cartesian plane. Each turn, the knight moves in an chess $\text{L}$-shape ($2$ units parallel to one axis and $1$ unit parallel to the other) to one of eight possible location, chosen at random. After $2016$ such turns, what is the expected value of the square of the distance of the knight from the origin?

Let $ U$ be an $ n \times n$ orthogonal matrix. Prove that for any $ n \times n$ matrix $ A$, the matrices \[ A_m=\frac{1}{m+1} \sum_{j=0}^m U^{-j}AU^j\] converge entrywise as $ m \rightarrow \infty.$ [i]L. Kovacs[/i]

Eight people are sitting around a circular table, each holding a fair coin. All eight people flip their coins and those who flip heads stand while those who flip tails remain seated. What is the probability that no two adjacent people will stand? $\textbf{(A) }\dfrac{47}{256}\qquad\textbf{(B) }\dfrac{3}{16}\qquad\textbf{(C) }\dfrac{49}{256}\qquad\textbf{(D) }\dfrac{25}{128}\qquad\textbf{(E) }\dfrac{51}{256}$

In a contest there are $ n$ yes-no problems. We know that no two contestants have the same set of answers. To each question we give a random uniform grade of set $ \{1,2,3,\dots,2n\}$. Prove that the probability that exactly one person gets first is at least $ \frac12$.

Let $S$ be a square of side length $1$. Two points are chosen independently at random on the sides of $S$. The probability that the straight-line distance between the points is at least $\tfrac12$ is $\tfrac{a-b\pi}c$, where $a$, $b$, and $c$ are positive integers and $\gcd(a,b,c)=1$. What is $a+b+c$? $\textbf{(A) }59\qquad\textbf{(B) }60\qquad\textbf{(C) }61\qquad\textbf{(D) }62\qquad\textbf{(E) }63$

Box A contains $3$ black and $4$ blue marbles. Box B has $7$ black and $1$ blue, whereas Box C has $2$ black, $3$ blue and $1$ green marble. I close my eyes and pick two marbles from $2$ different boxes. If it turns out that I get $1$ black and $1$ blue marble, what is the probability that the black marble is from box A and the blue one is from C?

A circle is randomly chosen in a circle of radius $1$ in the sense that a point is randomly chosen for its center, then a radius is chosen at random so that the new circle is contained in the original circle. What is the probability that the new circle contains the center of the original circle?

Two mathematicians take a morning coffee break each day. They arrive at the cafeteria independently, at random times between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., and stay for exactly $m$ mintues. The probability that either one arrives while the other is in the cafeteria is $40 \%,$ and $m=a-b\sqrt{c},$ where $a, b,$ and $c$ are positive integers, and $c$ is not divisible by the square of any prime. Find $a+b+c.$

Now Wendy wanders over and joins Dr. Lisi and her younger siblings. Thinking she knows everything there is about how to work with arithmetic series, she nearly turns right around to walk back home when Dr. Lisi poses a more challenging problem. "Suppose I select two distinct terms at random from the $2008$ term sequence. What's the probability that their product is positive?" If $a$ and $b$ are relatively prime positive integers such that $a/b$ is the probability that the product of the two terms is positive, find the value of $a+b$.

Let $ x$ be chosen at random from the interval $ (0,1)$. What is the probability that \[ \lfloor\log_{10}4x\rfloor \minus{} \lfloor\log_{10}x\rfloor \equal{} 0? \]Here $ \lfloor x\rfloor$ denotes the greatest integer that is less than or equal to $ x$. $ \textbf{(A) } \frac 18 \qquad \textbf{(B) } \frac 3{20} \qquad \textbf{(C) } \frac 16 \qquad \textbf{(D) } \frac 15 \qquad \textbf{(E) } \frac 14$

Hi guys, I was just reading over old posts that I made last year ( :P ) and saw how much the level of Getting Started became harder. To encourage more people from posting, I decided to start a Problem of the Day. This is how I'll conduct this: 1. In each post (not including this one since it has rules, etc) everyday, I'll post the problem. I may post another thread after it to give hints though. 2. Level of problem.. This is VERY important. All problems in this thread will be all AHSME or problems similar to this level. No AIME. Some AHSME problems, however, that involve tough insight or skills will not be posted. The chosen problems will be usually ones that everyone can solve after working. Calculators are allowed when you solve problems but it is NOT necessary. 3. Response.. All you have to do is simply solve the problem and post the solution. There is no credit given or taken away if you get the problem wrong. This isn't like other threads where the number of problems you get right or not matters. As for posting, post your solutions here in this thread. Do NOT PM me. Also, here are some more restrictions when posting solutions: A. No single answer post. It doesn't matter if you put hide and say "Answer is ###..." If you don't put explanation, it simply means you cheated off from some other people. I've seen several posts that went like "I know the answer" and simply post the letter. What is the purpose of even posting then? Huh? B. Do NOT go back to the previous problem(s). This causes too much confusion. C. You're FREE to give hints and post different idea, way or answer in some cases in problems. If you see someone did wrong or you don't understand what they did, post here. That's what this thread is for. 4. Main purpose.. This is for anyone who visits this forum to enjoy math. I rememeber when I first came into this forum, I was poor at math compared to other people. But I kindly got help from many people such as JBL, joml88, tokenadult, and many other people that would take too much time to type. Perhaps without them, I wouldn't be even a moderator in this forum now. This site clearly made me to enjoy math more and more and I'd like to do the same thing. That's about the rule.. Have fun problem solving! Next post will contain the Day 1 Problem. You can post the solutions until I post one. :D

Let $(x,y)$ be the coordinates of a point chosen uniformly at random within the unit square with vertices at $(0,0), (0,1), (1,0),$ and $(1,1).$ The probability that $|x - \tfrac{1}{2}| + |y - \tfrac{1}{2}| < \tfrac{1}{2}$ is $\tfrac{p}{q},$ where $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime integers. Find $p + q.$

In an urn there are n balls numbered $1, 2, \cdots, n$. They are drawn at random one by one without replacement and the numbers are recorded. What is the probability that the resulting random permutation has only one local maximum? A term in a sequence is a local maximum if it is greater than all its neighbors.

Seven people of seven different ages are attending a meeting. The seven people leave the meeting one at a time in random order. Given that the youngest person leaves the meeting sometime before the oldest person leaves the meeting, the probability that the third, fourth, and fifth people to leave the meeting do so in order of their ages (youngest to oldest) is $\frac{m}{n}$ , where m and n are relatively prime positive integers. Find $m + n$.

Let $S$ be the set of positive integer divisors of $20^9.$ Three numbers are chosen independently and at random from the set $S$ and labeled $a_1,a_2,$ and $a_3$ in the order they are chosen. The probability that both $a_1$ divides $a_2$ and $a_2$ divides $a_3$ is $\frac mn,$ where $m$ and $n$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $m.$

Find the probability that any given row in Pascal’s Triangle contains a perfect square. [i] (.1 point)[/i]

Alan, Barb, Cory, and Doug are on the golf team, Doug, Emma, Fran, and Greg are on the swim team, and Greg, Hope, Inga, and Alan are on the tennis team. These nine people sit in a circle in random order. The probability that no two people from the same team sit next to each other is $\tfrac{m}{n}$ where $m$ and $n$ are relatively prime positive integers. Find $m + n.$

Let $E = \{1, 2, \dots , 16\}$ and let $M$ be the collection of all $4 \times 4$ matrices whose entries are distinct members of $E$. If a matrix $A = (a_{ij} )_{4\times4}$ is chosen randomly from $M$, compute the probability $p(k)$ of $\max_i \min_j a_{ij} = k$ for $k \in E$. Furthermore, determine $l \in E$ such that $p(l) = \max \{p(k) | k \in E \}.$

A board game spinner is divided into three regions labeled $A$, $B$ and $C$. The probability of the arrow stopping on region $A$ is $\frac{1}{3}$ and on region $B$ is $\frac{1}{2}$. The probability of the arrow stopping on region $C$ is: $\text{(A)}\ \frac{1}{12} \qquad \text{(B)}\ \frac{1}{6} \qquad \text{(C)}\ \frac{1}{5} \qquad \text{(D)}\ \frac{1}{3} \qquad \text{(E)}\ \frac{2}{5}$