You can catch one of any Pokemon every 5 minutes on average.

There exist 42 different

types of Pokemon in total, how long before you have caught every kind of Pokemon? You
can use whatever program you want, need to explain assumptions.
Assumptions:
Each of the 42 types of Pokemon have an equal chance of being caught.
Assume that you return the Pokemon back to the environment after you have caught
it.
Firstly lets ignore the 5 minute on average aspect of the question and focus on finding the
expected number of Pokemon, ( ) you have to catch before getting the -th new Pokemon.
Clearly (1 ) = 1 because at first you have no Pokemon and every Pokemon is new, so you
only need to catch 1 Pokemon to get the 1st new Pokemon. After the 1 th new Pokemon
has been collected, there are now ( 1) possible Pokemon left that could be the next
new Pokemon.
Hence the probability of getting the next new Pokemon is given by,
( 1)
=

From this probability term we can clearly see that is geometrically distributed hence,
1
( ) = =
( 1)
Let represent the number of Pokemon you need to catch before you collect all different
types. Clearly is the sum of the random variables representing the amount of Pokemon to
you need to catch to get each consecutive new type of Pokemon. Hence,
= 1 + 2 + +
Where = 42 in this case.
Now from 2089, we know that the expectation is linear. We saw this with two random
variables where ( + ) = () + (). This can be extended to random
variables,
() = (1 + 2 + + )
= (1 ) + (2 ) + + ( )

= + + +
(1 1) (2 1) ( 1)

= + + +
1 1
1 1
= ( + + + 1)
1
Here = 42 hence,
42
1
(42 ) = 42

=1

Using MATLAB,
x = 1:42;
sumHarmonic = sum(1./x)
expectedNoPokemon = 42.*sumHarmonic
>> 181.7232 182 pokemon.
This means on average you need to catch about 182 Pokemon before you have caught all 42
types.
On average, you catch 1 Pokemon every 5 minutes so it will take you approximately 5
182 = 910 minutes until you have caught all 42 different types.