From: Chris Landauer <cal@rush.aero.org>
hihi, all -
i thought about this same problem some years ago, and will try to recreate where i ended - the original problem was to estimate the size of a picture archive on the web, from the repetition (presumed independent) of single experiment that extracted (presumably uniformly randomly) and presented one picture
the question was when to stop looking at the set, so i wanted a reasonable estimate for the total size N of the set ... i tried to find the problem statement in some published application, and the closest i could get was the population estimation problem in ecological sampling
This is simply the birthday paradox (it's not a logical paradox, it merely provides some initially non-intuitive numerical results). Given the historical use of birthday attacks in mathematics and cryptography (for factoring, discrete logarithms, et al.) I'd hope there would be a reasonably body of literature on the subject. Your Bayesian approach doesn't deviate so much from the factoring and discrete logarithm uses of the technique, as there one doesn't know the "size" of the pseudo-random permutation /a priori/. Phil ===== When inserting a CD, hold down shift to stop the AutoRun feature In the Device Manager, disable the SbcpHid device. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/cd3/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail