I'm admittedly not great at math, and I'm trying to work through the wikipedia article on exponential backoff, and there are a few things I don't fully understand.
The article says:
Given a uniform distribution of backoff times, the expected backoff time is the mean of the possibilities. That is, after c collisions, the number of backoff slots is in [0, 1, ..., N], where N = 2c − 1 and the expected backoff time (in slots) is this formula.
I understand how the summation symbol works, but I don't understand how it applies to the 1/N+1 expression. Do I calculate the final value of the summation and then multiply it by that fraction? Can someone give me a "plug and chug" example?
Then the article says: "and then calculate the mean of the backoff time possibilities" and provides this formula.
They lose me at that point. Are they saying these three expressions are equivalent or that one is the result of the next? How would I work through that equation?
Thanks!
