Exercise 5.3: Bootstrapping “theory” with hacker stats


Say we have a data set with \(n\) unique measurements. It can be shown that on average a fraction of \((1-1/n)^n\) of the measurements do not appear in a bootstrap sample. Note that for large samples, this is approximately \(1/e \approx 1/2.7\), since

\begin{align} \lim_{n\to\infty} (1-1/n)^n = 1/e. \end{align}

Use hacker stats to show that this is, indeed true. Hint: Think about a convenient “data set” to use for drawing samples.

This is kind of fun; you’re investigating some theory behind hacker stats with hacker stats!