Siobhan's Problem: The Coupon Collector Revisited

Abstract

This article considers from an empirical point of view the convergence of the distribution function for the waiting time in the classical coupon collector's problem. In addition, the application of the distribution in testing for “randomness” in the decimal expansions of π and e is considered. Some remarks are also made on the inverse problems: namely, given i distinct objects obtained in sampling at random with replacement m times from some population, how many distinct objects are there in the population?