----- Original Message -----
From: asimovd@aol.com
To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 12:41 AM
Subject: Re: [math-fun] Thought up while drawing polygons ...

I found a math discussion site on the web where someone calling themself Poliwrath
posed and solved the question of what is the probability that if A,B,C,D are random points in a square, then AB and CD intersect?

Poliwrath's clever reasoning is as follows:  If X,Y,Z are any three random points in the unit square, let T be the expected area of the triangle XYZ.  (This just happens to be 11/144.)  Hence the probability of (A lying in BCD) = T, and same for B lying in ACD, C lying in ABD and D lying in ABD.  Since these 4 events are disjoint (!), the probability that one of them occurs is 4*T, and so the probability that none of them occurs, i.e. the probability that the convex hull of A,B,C,D is a quadrilateral, is 1-4T.
Among the 24 equally likely ways that A,B,C,D can be assigned to the corners of any given quadrilateral, just 1/3 of them involve AB interesecting CD (since wherever A is, B can be adjacent with prob. = 2/3, or opposite, with prob. = 1/3).  This shows that P = [the probability AB and CD intersect] is (1-4T)/3.  Assuming T = 11/144, this gives P = 25/108.  (I don't know the calculation giving T = 11/144, but both this figure and the 25/108 are well approximated by my computer simulations, so I believe them.)

--Dan
 
    If this reasoning is true (see my other post, sent about 1 minute ago), it's interesting that it seems
to be powerless in the 3-D case of determining the chance that 6 ordered connected segments form
a knot. Does anyone have any ideas on that?