At 5:45 PM -0600 2/18/03, Matt Crawford wrote:
In general, if G has n randomly chosen members of F, isn't the answer just 1/e**(n**2)? There are n**2 pairs of functions in G (ok n*(n-1)) and the probability of no collision for each pair is 1/e as you point out above.> ... We can ask what is theprobability of a collision between f and g, i.e. that there exists some value, x, in S such that f(x) = g(x)?But then you didn't answer your own question. You gave the expected number of collisions, but not the probability that at least one exists.That probability the sum over k from 1 to 2^128 of (-1)^(k+1)/k!, or about as close to 1-1/e as makes no difference. But here's the more interesting question. If S = Z/2^128 and F is the set of all bijections S->S, what is the probability that a set G of 2^128 randomly chosen members of F contains no two functions f1, f2 such that there exists x in S such that f1(x) = f2(x)?
G is a relatively miniscule subset of F
Just plain minuscule: |G| = 2**128, |F| = (2**128)! ~= 2**(2**135)
Even if |G| << |F| that is true. If G contains 5 functions, there are 20 pairs and 1/e**20 ~= 2.06E-9.but I'm thinking that the fact that |G| = |S| makes the probability very, very small.
Arnold Reinhold
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