Each box of a certain breakfast cereal contains one of ten different coupons, each with the same probability. We win a prize if we manage to obtain a complete collection of all the different coupons. How long on average do we have to wait? (For example, suppose we draw the following coupons in order: 5, 2, 3, 7, 5, 1, 1, 4, 8, 4, 1, 9, 10, 2, 3, 3, 6. With the last coupon 6, we have completed our collection, and so we stop after 17 steps.)
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Main standard coupon collector's problem question seems to be http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/28905/expected-time-to-roll-all-1-through-6-on-a-die – Henry Aug 12 '16 at 13:26
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Wikipedia has a writeup of the coupon collector's problem. If there are $n$ coupons and you already have $k$ of them, the expected time to get the next is $\frac n{n-k}$ This leads to the time to get them all being $n$ times $H_n$, the $n^{\text{th}}$ Harmonic number. $H_n=\sum_{i=1}^n \frac 1i \approx \log(n)+\gamma$, where $\gamma \approx 0.577$ and you need $n$ times this, so $n \log(n)+n\gamma$
Ross Millikan
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