PROBLEM SET ON STATISTICS

(PROBABILITY AND PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS)

WM Prob 2.4 and Prob 2.8 An experiment involves tossing a pair of dice, 1 green and 1 red,
and recording the numbers that come up. If , x equals the outcome on the green die and y the
outcome on the red die, describe the sample space S

(a) by listing the elements (x,y) (b) by using the rule method

(c) list the elements corresponding to the event A that the sum is greater than 8;

(d) list the elements corresponding to the event B that a 2 occurs on either die;

(e) list the elements corresponding to the event C that a number greater than 4 comes up on the
green die

(f) list the elements corresponding to the event A∩C

(g) list the elements corresponding to the event A∩B

(h) list the elements corresponding to the event B∩C

(i) construct a Venn diagram to illustrate the intersections and unions of the events A. B. and C.

WM Example 2.20:1 In how many ways can 7 graduate students be assigned to one triple and
two double hotel rooms during a conference? Ans – 210

WM Example 2.21:1 A young boy asks his mother to get five Game-Boy™ cartridges from his
collection of 10 arcade and 5 sports games. How many ways are there that his mother will
get 3 arcades and 2 sports games, respectively? Ans – 1200

WM Example 2.29:1 What is the probability of getting a total of 7 or 11 when a pair of fair dice
are tossed? Ans – 2/9

WM Example 2.32:1 Suppose the manufacturer specifications of the length of a certain type of
computer cable are 2000 ± 10 millimeters. In this industry, it is known that small cable is just as
likely to be defective (not meeting specifications) as large cable. That is, the probability of
randomly producing a cable with length exceeding 2010 mm is equal to the probability of
producing a cable with length smaller than 1990 mm. The probability that the production
procedure meets specifications is known to be 0.99.
(a) What is the probability that a cable selected randomly is too large?
(b) What is the probability that a randomly selected cable is larger than 1990 mm?
Solution: Let M be the event that a cable meets specifications. Let S and L be the events
that the cable is too small and too large, respectively. Then
.
(a) P(M) = 0.99 and P(S) = P(L) = = 0.005

(b) Denoting by X the length of a randomly selected cable, we have

P(1990 < X < 2010) = P{M) = 0.99. Since P(X > 2010) = P(L) = 0.005 then
P(X > 1990) = P(M) + P(L) = 0.995.
This also can be solved by using P(X > 1990) + P(X < 1990) = 1.
Thus, P{X > 1990) = 1 - P{S) = 1 - 0.005 = 0.995.

WM Example 2.34:1 Consider an industrial process in the textile industry in which strips of a
particular type of cloth are being produced. These strips can be defective in two ways, length and
nature of texture. For the case of the latter, the process of identification is very complicated. It is
known from historical information on the process that 10% of strips fail the length test, 5% fail
the texture test, and only 0.8% fail both tests. If a strip is selected randomly from the process and
a quick measurement identifies it as failing the length test, what is the probability that it is
texture defective?

Solution: Consider the events L : length defective, T : texture defective

Thus, given that the strip is length defective:, the probability that this strip is texture defective is
given by
( ∩ ) 0.008
P (T|L) = ( ) = 0.1 = 0.08

WM Example 2.40:1 A coin is biased so that a head is twice as likely to occur as a tail. If the
coin is tossed 3 times, what is the probability of getting 2 tails and 1 head?

Solution: The sample space for the experiment consists of the 8 elements,
S = (HHH, HHT, HTH, THE, HTT, THT, TTH, TTT)
However, with an unbalanced coin it is no longer possible to assign equal probabilities
to each sample point. It is easy to see that
P(H) = 2 / 3 and P(T) = 1/3
for one toss since a head is twice as likely to occur as a tail.

Now let A be the event of getting 2 tails and 1 head in the 3 tosses of the coin. Then,

A = (TTH,THT, HTT) since the outcomes on each of the 3 tosses are independent

P{TTH) = P(T)P(T)P{H) = x x =
Similarly, P(THT) = P(HTT) = 2/27, and hence P(A) = 2/27 + 2/27 + 2/27 = 2/9
WM Example 2.41:1 In a certain assembly plant, three machines, B1, B2, and B3, make 30%:,
45%, and 25%, respectively, of the products. It is known from past, experience that 2%, 3%,
and 2% of the products made by each machine, respectively, arc defective. Now, suppose that a
finished product is randomly selected. What is the probability that if is defective?

Solution: Consider the following events:

A: the product, is defective, B1: the product is made by machine B1
B2: the product is made by machine B2 B3: the product is made by machine: B3.

Applying the rule of elimination, we can write

P(A) = P(B1)P(A| B1) + P(B2)P(A| B2) + P(B3)P(A| B3).

P(Bl)P(A\Bl) = (0.3) (0.02) = 0.006 P{B2)P(A\B2) = (0.45)(0.03) = 0.0135

P{B3)P(A\B3) = (0.25)(0.02) = 0.005
and hence
P(A) = 0.006 + 0.0135 + 0.005 = 0.0245

Instead of asking for P(A), by the rule of elimination, suppose that we now consider the
problem of finding the conditional probability P(Pj|A) in example 2.41. In other words, suppose
that a product was randomly selected and it is defective. What is the probability that, this product
was made by machine P,?
Questions of this type can lie answered by using the following theorem, called Bayes' rule.

WM Example 2.42:1 With reference to Example 2.41, if a product were chosen randomly and
found to be defective, what is the probability that it was made by machine B3 ?

Solution: Using Bayes' rule to write

( ) ( | )
( | )=
( ) ( | )+ ( ) ( | )+ ( ) ( | )

and them substituting the: probabilities calculated in Example 2.41, we have

0.005 0.005 10
.
( | )= =
. . .

WM Example 3.2:1 A stockroom clerk returns three safety helmets at random to three steel mill
employees who had previously checked them. If Smith, Jones, and Brown, in that order, receive
one of the three hats, list the sample points for the possible orders of returning the helmets, and
find the value m of the random variable M that represents the number of correct matches.
Solution:
If 5, J, and B stand for Smith's, Jones's, and Brown's helmets, respectively, then the possible
arrangements in which the helmets may be returned and the number of correct mat dies are

Sample Space m
SJB 3
SBJ 1
BJS 1
JSB 1
JBS 0
BSJ 0

The possible values m of M and their probabilities are

m 0 1 3
P (M=m) 1/3 1/2 1/6

The cumulative distribution function of M is

F(0) = f(0) =
F(1) = F(2) = f(0) + f(1) = + = F(3) = 1

WM Example 3.11:1 Suppose that the error in the reaction temperature, in °C, for a controlled
laboratory experiment is a continuous random variable X having the probability density function

f(x) = when -1 < x < 2

= 0, elsewhere
(a) Verify whether the above function could be used as a PDF or not
(b) Find P(0 < X < 1)
(c) find F(x) and use it to evaluate P(0 <X < 1) Ans – b) 1/9
c)

WM Example 3.14:1 Two refills for a ballpoint pen are selected at random from a box that
contains 3 blue refills, 2 red refills, and 3 green refills. If X is the number of blue refills and
Y is the number of red refills selected, find
(a) the joint probability function f(x,y)
(b) P[(X,Y) 6 A], where A is the region {(x,y)\x + y < 1}

Solution: (a) The possible pairs of values (x,y) are (0, 0), (0,1), (1, 0), (1, 1), (0, 2), and (2, 0).
Now, (0,1), for example, represents the probability that a red and a greem refill are selected.
The total number of equally likely ways of selecting any 2 refills from the 8 is = 28

The number of ways of selecting 1 red from 2 red refills and 1 green from
3 green refills is = 6.
Hence f(0,1) = 6/28 = 3/14.
Similar calculations yield the probabilities for the other cases, which are presented in the table
given below
Joint Probability Distribution

f(x,y) X Row
0 1 2 totals
0 15
y 28
1 0 6
28
2 0 0 1
28
Col Totals 1

Note that the probabilities sum to 1.

WM Example 3.16:1 Show that the column and row totals of the above table give the marginal
distribution of X alone and of Y alone, respectively.

WM Example 3.15:1 A candy company distributes boxes of chocolates with a mixture of

creams, toffees, and nuts coated in both light and dark chocolate. For a randomly selected box,
let X and Y, respectively, be the proportions of the light and dark chocolates that are creams and
suppose that the joint density function is

f(x) = (2x + 3y). for 0 < x < 1,0 < y < 1 ,

=0 elsewhere

Find
(a) P[(X, Y ε A], where A = ((x,y) | 0 < x < , < y < )

(b) Find marginal distributions of x and y respectively g(x) and h(y) for the above joint density
function.

2 4x + 3
g(x) = f(x, y)dy = (2x + 3y)dy =
5 5
for 0 ≤ x ≤ 1, and g(x) = 0 elsewhere. Similarly,

2 2(1 + 3y)
h(y) = f(x, y)dx = (2x + 3y)dx =
5 5
for 0 ≤ y ≤ 1, and h(y) = 0 elsewhere
Example 5.6:1 A large chain retailer purchases a certain kind of electronic device from a
manufacturer. The manufacturer indicates that the defective rate of the device is 3%.
(a) The inspector of the retailer randomly picks 20 items from a shipment. What is the
probability that there will be at least one defective item among these 20?

(b) Suppose that the retailer receives 10 shipments in a month and the inspector randomly tests
20 devices per shipment. What is the probability that there will be 3 shipments containing at least
one defective device?

Solution: (a) Denote by X the number of defective devices among the 20. This X follows
a 6(x;20,0.03) distribution. Hence
P(X > 1) = 1 - P(X = 0) = 1 - 6(0; 20,0.03)
= 1 - 0.03°(1 - 0.03)20-0 = 0.4562.

(b) In this case, each shipment can either contain at least one defective item or not. Hence,
testing the result of each shipment can be viewed as a Bernoulli trial with p = 0.4562 from part
(a). Assuming the independence from shipment to shipment and denoting by Y the number of
shipments containing at least one defective item Y follows another binomial distribution b(y;
10,0.4562). Therefore, the answer to this question is

P(Y = 3) = (0.4562)3 x (1 - 0.4562)7 = 0.1602

In general, we are interested in the probability of selecting x successes from the k items labeled
successes and n — x failures from the N — k items labeled failures when a random sample of
size n is selected from N items. The number of successes x of a is called a hypergeometric
random variable and its probability distribution called the hypergeometric distribution is
given by
×
h(x; N, n, k) =

Lots of 40 components each are called unacceptable if they contain as many as 3 defectives or
more. The procedure for sampling the lot is to select 5 components at random and to reject the
lot if a defective is found. What is the probability that exactly 1 defective is found in the sample
if there are 3 defectives in the entire lot?

Solution: Use the hypergeometric distribution with n = 5, N = 40, k — 3, and x = 1 to find the
probability of obtaining one defective to be

Example 5.18: Geometric distribution is given by

g(x; p) = pq , x = 1,2,3, . ..

In a certain manufacturing process it is known that, on the average, 1 in every 100 items is
defective. What is the probability that the fifth item inspected is the first defective item found?
Solution: Using the geometric distribution with x — 5 and p — 0.01, we have

f (5;0.01) = (0.01)(0.99) = 0.0096

( )
 Check whether the function f(x) = e , -∞ < < ∞ where
√
x and μ are two parameters can be used as a probability density function or not.
Given : ᴦ(α) =∫ x ∝ e dx for α > 0 and ᴦ = √π

Example 6.2:1 Given a standard normal distribution, find the area under the curve that lies
(a) to the right of z = 1.84, and (b) between z = -1.97 and z = 0.86.

Example 6.8:1 An electrical firm manufactures light bulbs that have a life, before burn-out, that
is normally distributed with mean equal to 800 hours and a standard deviation of 40 hours. Find
the probability that a bulb burns between 778 and 834 hours.

Example 6.9:1 In an industrial process the diameter of a ball bearing is an important component
part. The buyer sets specifications on the diameter to be 3.0 ± 0.01 cm. The implication is that no
part falling outside these specifications will be accepted. It is known that in the process the
diameter of a ball bearing has a normal distribution with mean p. = 3.0 and standard deviation
σ = 0.005. On the average, how many manufactured ball bearings will be scrapped?

Example 7.7 Show that the moment-generating function of the random variable X having a
normal probability distribution with mean µ and variance is given by
. M (t) = exp(μt + σ t )