rock band blinkdagger

The Problem Statement

The five songs that the blinkdagger band (Rob, Zane, Daniel, and Quan) can complete on expert are:

  1. Oasis - Wonderwall
  2. Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down
  3. Bon Jovi - Livin’ on a Prayer
  4. Wheezer - Say It Ain’t So
  5. Journey - Any Way You Want It

Assume the following:

  • The blinkdagger band only has time to play 8 songs before they have to start working on MATLAB tutorials.
  • For each of the 8 songs, the blinkdagger band randomly chooses to play a song from the 5 listed above.
  • All 5 songs have an equal chance of being picked.

Question: What is the % chance that the band will have played all five songs after their session ends?


The Prize

The winner will receive a 10 dollar gift certificate to Amazon.com!

The Rules

  1. Email your answers to mondaymathmadness at gmail dot com.

  2. Inelgible for any one person to win more than once per year. But you should still submit your answer!

  3. Answer must be explained. You must show your work! We will accept answers in the form of a MATLAB script as well. We will be the final judge on whether an answer was properly explained or not.

  4. The deadline to submit answers is January 26th 2009, Monday 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time

  5. The winners will be chosen randomly from all the submittals using a random number generator.

  6. The winner will be announced at 9:00 AM PST January 30th, 2009.

  7. Comments for this post should only be used to clarify the problem. Please do not discuss ANY potential solutions.

  8. Please spread the word about our contest by stumbling this webpage!