Tue
Jun
21
Tuesday Teaser #34
A very tough, but extremely interesting, probability problem for my first teaser in a while.
Let’s forget the standard working week and assume that companies decide when people have to work using a completely different method. Let’s suppose that they have to give a holiday to every single employee at the company whenever any one employee has a birthday. Other than those holidays, employees work every day. Forget leap years; let’s assume that there are 365 per year.
If a company wants to maximize the expected total number of man-hours worked per year, how many employees should it hire? (To ensure randomness, assume companies cannot discriminate in hiring based on someone’s birthday.)
