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We've got $10$ different pairs of shoes. Now we mix them up and randomly regroup them into $10$ "pairs". Of course some "pairs" are not matched and maybe some of them are. So what's the expect number of pairs that are matched?

By "randomly group", I mean you can randomly pick one from the $20$, then choose one from the remaining $19$ to pair it up, and so on.

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Let $X$ be the number of pairs of shoes that are matched. It is somewhat complicated to work with $X$ directly, so we think of $X$ as a sum of simpler variables:

For $i=1,2,\ldots10$, let $X_i=\cases{1 & \text{if the }i\text{th pair is matched},\\ 0 & \text{otherwise}.}$

Then each $X_i$ is a Bernoulli variable and $X=\sum_{i=1}^{10}X_i$.

Expectation is linear, so $ \Bbb E(X)=\sum_{i=1}^{10}\,\Bbb E(X_i). $

Now we fix $i$ and find $\Bbb E(X_i) $:

Since $X_i$ is a Bernoulli variable, $\Bbb E(X_i)=P[X_i=1]$. But the probability that $X_i=1$ is the probability that the $i$th pair was matched. Since it is equally likely that any one of the other 19 shoes is paired with the left shoe of the $i$th pair, $P[X_i=1]={1\over19}$.

So $\Bbb E(X_i)={1\over19}$.

Finally, we have:

$\Bbb E(X)=\sum_{i=1}^{10}\Bbb E(X_i)=\sum_{i=1}^{10}{1\over19}=10/19.$

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    I'm thinking of the problem as the same as "10 married couples are split into 10 groups, each of size 2". Find the expected number of groups consisting of a married couple. (That is, a pair of shoes consists of two distinct objects.)2011-11-14