Question: The song the “12 Days of Christmas” is a great introduction to the mathematical structures of Natural Numbers, Triangular Numbers and Tetrahedral Numbers. As you may recall, the first day the recipient receives one gift (a partridge in a pear tree.) On the second day, the recipient receives three gifts (two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree) and thus by the second day the recipient has cumulatively received four gifts total. At the end of the 12th day of Christmas, suppose that out of all cumulative gifts received, three are chosen at random.
Find the probability (rounded to three decimal places) that at least one of these three gifts chosen is a golden ring.
“Math Corner” is a contest that appears in each issue of The Current and is a collaboration between NSU’s Department of Mathematics | NSU Halmos College of Arts and Sciences | NSU and NSU’s Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts | Halmos College of Arts and Sciences | NSU. Contest submissions to the Math Corner question in the Current’s latest issue can be sent to jgershma@nova.edu up until the date the next issue is published. Prizes are awarded at the end of the academic year.
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