19

Problem 7 (continued)
Three distinguishable balls are randomly placed in three
distinguishable cells.
What is the sample space associated with the experiment?
What if the balls were not distinguishable?

S1: Cell 1 is singly occupied

S2: Cell 2 is singly occupied

What are the probabilities P(S1) and P(S2) in each case?

 20

Problem 8 (continued)
A readership survey conducted among the adult
population showed that 35% read Times, 15% read
Express and 25% read Herald; 10% read both Times and
Express, 8% read both Express and Herald, 5% read both
Times and Herald; 4% read all three publications.

Sample space =?
Probability of reading 0/1/2/3 newspaper(s) =?
A Gambling Problem
21

(Chevalier de Mrs Problem)

 22

This problem was solved by Blaise Pascal and

Pierre de Fermat.
How?
 23

Complementation Method
Compute the probability of the complement A
Use the fact the sum of probabilities of an event and its
complement add up to 1: P(A) 1 P( A)

Now work out the problem!

BACKGROUND
Gambler Antoine Gombaud (16071684), better known as the Chevalier de Mr, used
to win consistently by betting even money that a six would come up at least once in
four rolls with a single die.
However, although he thought the odds were favourable on betting that he could throw
at least one sonnez (i.e. doublesix) with twentyfour throws of a pair of dice, his
experiences indicated that twentyfive throws were required
 24

Another Classical Gambling Problem

The Grand Duke of Tuscany asked Galileo Galilei (1564
1642) the following question:
Suppose three dice are thrown and the three numbers
obtained added.
The total scores of nine, ten, eleven and twelve can all be
obtained in six different combinations.
Why then is a total score of ten or eleven more likely than
a total score of nine or twelve?
 25

CONDITIONAL
PROBABILITY
 26

Example (Exercise 2, Page 17)

Consider only families with 2 children. Assume boys and
girls are equally likely.
A family is randomly chosen.
Given that one child of the family is a boy, what is the
chance that the other one is a girl?
 27

Conditional Probability
Let A, B be two events such that P(A) > 0. Then

P ( A B)
Q(B)= P( B | A)
P ( A)
is the conditional probability of B given A.
Conditional probability given an event A is computed by
restricting the sample space to A.
Conditional probability is also a probability:
I. 0 Q(B) 1
II. Q() = 0, Q(A) = 1.
III. The summation law holds as well.
 28

Example (Example 3, Pg. 34, text)

A hat contains three two sided cards: b|b b|w w|w
One card is drawn randomly and placed on the table.
The visible side is black. What is the probability that the
other side is white?
 29

Example (From Exercise 2, Page 17)

Consider only families with 2 children. Assume boys and
girls are equally likely.
A family is randomly chosen.
Given that one child of the family is a boy, what is the
chance that the other one is a girl?
You meet one child of the family, who is a boy. What is the
chance that the other one is a girl?
 30

Sub-events, Super-events
A is a sub-event of B if whenever A happens, B must
happen as well.
We write A B, and call B a super-event of A.

Example
Three fair coins are tossed. Let A: exactly two heads, B: at
least one head.
i) Which one is a sub-event of the other?
ii) Work out P(A|B) and P(B|A).
 31

Quick Challenge
Can you work out the general formulae for P(A|B) and
P(B|A) when A is a sub-event of B?