Dice: Inclusion-Exclusion Principle

A fair six-sided die is rolled 6 times. What is the probability of 5 and 6 appearing at least once?

Answer

This probability is 1 minus the probability of a 5 not appearing OR a 6 not appearing. Using the inclusion-exclusion principle, the probability is:

\[ 1 - 2\left(\frac{5}{6}\right)^6 + \left(\frac{4}{6}\right)^6. \]

Numerically, this is:

\[ 1 - 2\left(\frac{15625}{46656}\right) + \frac{4096}{46656} = \frac{19502}{46656} \approx 0.418. \]
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