How many handshakes occur at a party with 16 people?

[ParisSpart]

16 people Meet together at a party. Each pair of these individuals decide to chance whether you hailed by handshake or not (probability handshake = 0.40). On average, how many handshakes occur?

X=handshakes if 1 and no handshakes if 0
X=X1+X2+X3+X4+X5+X6+X7+X8 and E(X)=E(X1)+...+E(X8)=8*0.40 but its says tha its not correct where is wrong?

 

[Ray Vickson]

16 people Meet together at a party. Each pair of these individuals decide to chance whether you hailed by handshake or not (probability handshake = 0.40). On average, how many handshakes occur?

X=handshakes if 1 and no handshakes if 0
X=X1+X2+X3+X4+X5+X6+X7+X8 and E(X)=E(X1)+...+E(X8)=8*0.40 but its says tha its not correct where is wrong?

You say that 16 people can be paired in only 8 ways?

 

[ParisSpart]

256?

 

[Ray Vickson]

256?

Work it out. Don't guess!

 

[ParisSpart]

each person can be paired with other 15 people so we have 15*16=240 but 240*0.40 its not correct where is my wrong?

 

[ParisSpart]

the way thst i solve this is wrong?

 

[Ray Vickson]

each person can be paired with other 15 people so we have 15*16=240 but 240*0.40 its not correct where is my wrong?

Google is your friend; look up "numbers of pairs" or something similar. Or, read your textbook or course notes!

 

[ParisSpart]

this means that you cannot help?

 

[haruspex]

each person can be paired with other 15 people so we have 15*16=240 but 240*0.40 its not correct where is my wrong?

If you choose 2 people from 16, you can choose the first in 16 ways and the second in 15 ways. But for a given pair, you don't care what order you chose them in. Try it with smaller numbers, like 2 from 2, 2 from 3...

 

[HallsofIvy]

If you honestly have no idea how to even approach this problem, where did you get it? If this really is homework, clearly your teacher expects you to know things that you apparently don't. You really need to talk to your teacher about this.