[Math] Expected value of the largest element of a subset

combinatoricsexpected valueprobability

A subset of $\{1, 2, 3, \dots, 20\}$ containing 10 elements is chosen at random. The largest element of this subset is noted. Find the expected value of the largest element.

I tried to solve this problem by finding the probability of each element being the largest one, but I got confused and would like some help. 🙂

Best Answer

There are no subsets of $10$ elements with $1,2,3...,9$ as the maximum element. The number of subsets with $m(\ge10)$ as the maximum element is given by $\binom{m-1}9$, since you select $9$ other numbers from the $m-1$ numbers smaller than $m$. There are $\binom{20}{10}$ subsets of size $10$ in totality. The required expectation is$$\frac1{\binom{20}{10}}\sum_{m=10}^{20}m\binom{m-1}9=\frac1{9!\cdot\binom{20}{10}}\sum_{m=10}^{20}\frac{m!}{(m-10)!}$$Now use the fact

$\frac{m!}{(m-10)!}=m(m-1)...(m-9)\\=\frac{(m+1)-(m-10)}{11}[m(m-1)...(m-9)]\\=\frac1{11}[(m+1)m...(m-9)-m(m-1)...(m-10)]$

and so$$\sum_{m=10}^{20}\frac{m!}{(m-10)!}=\frac{21\times20\times19\times...\times11}{11}=21\times20\times19\times...\times12$$giving the required expectation as $210/11$.


In general, when subsets of size $q$ of the set $\{1,2,...,n\}~(q\le n)$ are taken and their maximum noted, the expected maximum is$$\frac{(n+1)q}{q+1}$$