On detecting a periodic event by means of periodic observations. I
Stefan A. Burr · Mathematics of Computation · 1975
The following situation is considered. A certain event is observable only intermittently according to some period. An observer attempts to detect an occurrence of the event by making observations according to some other period. We wish to determine the probability P ( s ) P(s) that the event is first detected on the s th observation. The period of the event may be known or unknown. This paper discusses the number-theoretic calculations necessary to solve the problem; computational aspects will be discussed in a future paper.