Sitting in a bus
There is a bus with 50 labelled seats from 1 to 50. There are also 50 persons labelled from 1 to 50 standing in a queue.
People board on the bus in sequence from 1 to n. The rule is, if a person ‘i’ boards the bus, he checks if seat ‘i’ is empty. If it is empty, he sits there, else he randomly picks an empty seat and sits there. Given that 1st person picks seat randomly, find the probability that 50th person sits on his place i.e. 50th seat. 
Once the first person finds a seat, remaining all people will sit in sequence. so, the 49th person can either sit on the seat allocated to 50th person or somewhere else.
Based on where he sits, the last person i.e. 50th person will have 2 options – sit on the 50th seat or somewhere else.
Hence probability is 1/2.
The answer is correct but the explanation not accurate. The remaining people do not necessary sit in sequence!!
Lets go backwards. If there where only 3 seats and the 1st person did not take your seat than the 2nd person can choose between your seat or the 1st person seat so the probability is 1/2.
If there are 4 seats than there are 3 empty seats: yours, 1st person, and the person before the last. so the 2nd person has a probability of 1/3 that he chooses your seat, or 1st person seat, or the person before the last, So if he didn’t choose your seat we come back for the probability of 1/2 for the person before you and so on.
Your Answer
More puzzles to try-
What is the logic behind these ?
3 + 3 = 3 5 + 4 = 4 1 + 0 = 3 2 + 3 = 4 ...Read More »Defective stack of coins puzzle
There are 10 stacks of 10 coins each. Each coin weights 10 gms. However, one stack of coins is defective ...Read More »Which clock works best?
Which clock works best? The one that loses a minute a day or the one that doesn’t work at all?Read More »(Advanced) Cheryl’s Birthday Puzzle
Paul, Sam and Dean are assigned the task of figuring out two numbers. They get the following information: Both numbers ...Read More »Five greedy pirates and gold coin distribution Puzzle
Five puzzleFry ship’s pirates have obtained 100 gold coins and have to divide up the loot. The pirates are all ...Read More »Magical flowers!!
A devotee goes to three temples, temple1, temple2 and temple3 one after the other. In front of each temple, there ...Read More »Tuesday, Thursday what are other two days staring with T?
Four days are there which start with the letter ‘T‘. I can remember only two of them as “Tuesday , Thursday”. ...Read More »How could only 3 apples left
Two fathers took their sons to a fruit stall. Each man and son bought an apple, But when they returned ...Read More »How Many Eggs ?
A farmer is taking her eggs to the market in a cart, but she hits a pothole, which knocks over ...Read More »HARD MATHS – How much faster is one train from other Puzzle
Two trains starting at same time, one from Bangalore to Mysore and other in opposite direction arrive at their destination ...Read More »Most Analytical GOOGLE INTERVIEW Question Revealed
Let it be simple and as direct as possible. Interviewer : Tell me how much time (in days) and money would ...Read More »Lateral thinking sequence Puzzle
Solve this logic sequence puzzle by the correct digit- 8080 = 6 1357 = 0 2022 = 1 1999 = ...Read More »How did he know?
A man leaves his house in the morning to go to office and kisses his wife. In the evening on ...Read More »Pizza Cost Math Brain Teaser
Jasmine, Thibault, and Noah were having a night out and decided to order a pizza for $10. It turned out ...Read More »Which letter replaces the question mark
Which letter replaces the question markRead More »Which room is safest puzzle
A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, ...Read More »Richie’s Number System
Richie established a very strange number system. According to her claim for different combination of 0 and 2 you will ...Read More »Srabon wanted to pass
The result of math class test came out. Fariha’s mark was an even number. Srabon got a prime!! Nabila got ...Read More »Become Normal!!
Robi is a very serious student. On the first day of this year his seriousness for study was 1 hour. ...Read More »Sakib Knows The Number!
Ragib: I got digits of a 2 digit number Sakib: Is it an odd? Ragib: Yes. Moreover, the sum of ...Read More »
