Choosing good sample from the Universe

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Let , be two disjoint subsets of a universe such that ||=||=. Suppose we select a random subset ⊆ by independently sampling each element of with probability ; that means, for each element of independently we include in with probability . We say that the random subset is good if the following two conditions hold: ∩=∅ and ∩ has at least one element. Show that for =1/, the probability that is good is larger than some positive constant.

How would we do this? How to show it has a positive lower bound?

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HINTS: Since you're looking for a lower bound, you might focus on the worst-case scenarios.

At a minimum, you need:

  • nothing drawn from set $T$
  • something -- or, rather, not nothing drawn from set $S$

You can find the probabilities of each of these things occurring, and you can multiply them together since they're independent. I claim that the resulting expressions are related to a famous calculus limit, which is how you can get the more difficult of the two bounds.

Can you take it from here?