[Math] Another Birthday Problem (Probability/Combinatorics)

combinatoricsprobability

What is the smallest number of people in a room to assure that the probability that at least two were born on the same day of the week is at least 40%?

I understand when approaching this type of problem, you simplify it so there's only 365 days. Also, I thought you go about the question by finding the probability that no one is born on the same day of the week. Then you subtract by 1 to get the solution:

Therefore, if the first person can have a birthday on any of 365 days, and the second is (365-8) because 1 week has to be removed (since question asks at least two born on the same day). I thought the answer is:

$1-\cfrac{365(365-8)…(365-r+1)}{365^{r}}\tag{1}$

The solution is 4 people but when I enter r=4, I get 5.6% which is obviously wrong. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Best Answer

Here are the first several results for the same day of the week: $$ \begin{align} 1-\frac77&=0&\text{$1$ person}&(0\%)\\ 1-\frac77\frac67&=\frac17&\text{$2$ people}&(14.29\%)\\ 1-\frac77\frac67\frac57&=\frac{19}{49}&\text{$3$ people}&(38.78\%)\\ 1-\frac77\frac67\frac57\frac47&=\frac{223}{343}&\text{$4$ people}&(65.01\%)\\ \end{align} $$