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I have been given a tree with n nodes and n-1 edges with it's weight. There are two people A and B. I have been given a list of nodes of size k.

A will pick a random node x from this list and B will independently pick a random node y from this list.

I have to find expected distance between these two nodes.

My way of solving it was to find the distance between all the (k*(k-1)/2)nodes of the list and dividing it by number of nodes in the list.

for ex: n=6,k=6 list=[1,2,3,4,5,6]

                    Node--------> 1
                                   \(1)<-----------Weight
                                    \
                                     3
                                (3) / \(2)
                                   /   \
                                  4     2
                             (4) / \ (5)
                                /   \
                               5     6

My answer was coming out to be 87/6 but the actual answer was 29/6.Please help me find whatever i am doing wrong here.

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  • $\begingroup$ "pick a random node" -- random with what probability distribution? $\endgroup$ – David Richerby Nov 8 '16 at 13:15
  • $\begingroup$ Both random nodes will be taken uniformly over the list of nodes $\endgroup$ – Disha Nov 8 '16 at 14:11
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Let $d(i,j)$ denote the distance between $i$ and $j$. Calculation shows that $$ \sum_{i<j} d(i,j) = 87. $$ Hence the average distance is $$ \frac{1}{6^2} \sum_{i,j=1}^6 d(i,j) = \frac{1}{36} \left(\sum_{i<j} d(i,j) + \sum_{i>j} d(i,j) + \sum_{i=j} d(i,j)\right) = \frac{2\cdot 87}{36} = \frac{29}{6}. $$

A simple way to do the calculation is as follows. Suppose that there are $n$ nodes, and that edge $e$ of weight $w_e$ cuts the tree into parts of size $k_e,n-k_e$. Then the average distance is $$ \frac{2}{n^2} \sum_e w_e k_e (n-k_e). $$ For example, in our case we get $$ \frac{2}{36} (1 \cdot 1 \cdot 5 + 2 \cdot 1 \cdot 5 + 3 \cdot 3 \cdot 3 + 4 \cdot 1 \cdot 5 + 5 \cdot 1 \cdot 5) = \frac{29}{6}. $$

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  • $\begingroup$ But how will i approach if let say there are only 2 nodes in the list. Let say in this graph we have [1,6] in the list ? $\endgroup$ – Disha Nov 9 '16 at 4:01
  • $\begingroup$ My formula works for all trees. $\endgroup$ – Yuval Filmus Nov 9 '16 at 4:02
  • $\begingroup$ So according to your formula (2*8)/(2^2).Is it correct $\endgroup$ – Disha Nov 9 '16 at 4:12
  • $\begingroup$ Please do your own homework. $\endgroup$ – Yuval Filmus Nov 9 '16 at 4:13
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    $\begingroup$ Try to understand where the formula comes from and why it works, and then you will be able to answer your own question. $\endgroup$ – Yuval Filmus Nov 9 '16 at 4:18

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