Expected Adjacent Couples at a Round Table

Expectation · Medium · Free problem
$n$ married couples are seated uniformly at random around a circular table with
n$ seats. What is the expected number of couples who end up sitting next to each other? For concreteness, "sitting next to each other" means a husband and wife occupy two consecutive seats in the circle. A couple counts as adjacent regardless of who else sits nearby.

Open the full interactive solver, hints, and worked solution →