tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-262497282011-11-27T19:22:51.303-05:00Tips, tricks, and doodads of OO programming, database development, algorithm analysis, design patterns, et al - things that I've learned along the way. Oh, and some fun math stuff thrown in here too...digimetichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15429355220934136434noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26249728.post-74346763403308216142008-09-03T08:10:00.009-04:002008-09-07T23:20:52.287-04:002008-09-07T23:20:52.287-04:00

OK, so my intentions for this blog were to primarily focus on software development, but so far I've only posted articles on probabilities - the Monty Hall Problem and the Birthday Paradox. Probability theory, however, has many direct applications in computer science. The Birthday Paradox for example, can be used to showcase the basic principles of hashing algorithms. The Monty Hall problem is <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BensDevCorner/~4/RJWaq4P2xtU" height="1" width="1"/>

digimetichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15429355220934136434noreply@blogger.com0http://bensdev.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-our-brains-do-not-intuitively-grasp.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26249728.post-23767181437549072022008-08-18T23:53:00.051-04:002008-09-07T23:21:28.113-04:002008-09-07T23:21:28.113-04:00

The other day at a family get-together, someone was talking about how weird it was that my brother-in-law and I share the same birthday (and interestingly enough, my father and sister have the same birthday as well). I promised my niece that I'd share the explanation as to why this isn't so weird. This problem is also know as "The Birthday Paradox", though it's not much of a paradox at <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BensDevCorner/~4/kP3dxqPHePc" height="1" width="1"/>

digimetichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15429355220934136434noreply@blogger.com0http://bensdev.blogspot.com/2008/08/happy-birthday-to-you-and-to-you-too.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26249728.post-44713940967500600392008-07-06T17:26:00.022-04:002008-11-12T22:23:10.643-05:002008-11-12T22:23:10.643-05:00

I recently took a class in "Combinatorics and Probability Theory" where we were assigned the famous Monty Hall problem as part of a homework exercise. The prof figured that since we were near the end of the semester and having already assigned us a few paradoxical probability problems that we'd have a decent chance at coming up with the correct answer without too much trouble.However, when the <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BensDevCorner/~4/FwQhatkCA4s" height="1" width="1"/>

digimetichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15429355220934136434noreply@blogger.com0http://bensdev.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-recently-took-class-in-combinatorics.html