GEM605 Probability Theory and Random Processes

Homework 1

Instructions: Solve the following problems. Provide your solutions completely and legibly. For every item, write
the problem before showing your solution to make your work more readable. Highlight your final answer and use
short bond papers.

1. Given that 𝑃(𝐴) = 0.9, 𝑃(𝐵) = 0.8, and 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) = 0.7, determine 𝑃(𝐴𝐶 ∩ 𝐵𝐶 ).
2. Police report that among drivers stopped on suspicion of impaired driving 70% took test A, 30%
test B, and 20% both tests A and B. Determine the probability that a randomly selected suspect is
given (a) test A or test B or both, (b) test A or test B, but not both, and (c) neither test A nor test
B.
3. The probabilities that a husband and wife will be alive in 30 years from now are given by 0.7 and
0.8, respectively. Assuming that the events that the husband and wife will be alive in 30 years
from now are independent, find the probability that in 30 years (a) both, (b) neither, and (c) at
least one, will be alive.
4. An experiment consists of rolling three fair dice at the same time. Event G is when the sum of the
dots on the face of the three dice that are uppermost is equal to 16. Find the probability of event
G.
5. A string whose length is 1 meter is cut into three strings. What is the probability that these three
pieces can form a triangle?
6. The event 𝐴 is defined when at least one 6 in 4 tosses of a fair die is obtained, and the event 𝐵 is
defined when at least one double 6 in 24 tosses of a pair of fair dice is obtained. Which one of
these two events is more likely?
7. An integer between 1 and 30 is selected at random. Find the probability of selecting a prime
number if an integer between 1 and 15 is twice as likely to occur.
8. A fair die is tossed twice. Determine the probability of getting a 4 or a 5 or a 6 on the first toss and
a 1 or a 2 or a 3 or a 4 on the second toss.
9. There are 𝑛 ≥ 1 identical bags. In each bag, there are 10 balls, numbered from 1 to 10 inclusive.
We randomly pick a ball from each bag. Determine the probability that the product of the 𝑛
numbers on the 𝑛 balls is a multiple of 3.
10. Assuming all dice are fair, which one of the following three cases is more likely when the sum in
each case is six: (i) rolling two dice, (ii) rolling three dice, and (iii) rolling four dice?
11. You are given the opportunity to guess the color on the opposite side of a card placed on a table.
The card can by any one of a set of three.
12. There are two events 𝐴 and 𝐵 such that 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) = 0.8, 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) = 0.1, and 𝑃(𝐴 ∣ 𝐵) =
0.25. Determine 𝑃(𝐵 ∣ 𝐴).
13. A bag contains 12 red marbles, 8 green marbles, and 4 blue marbles. A marble is drawn from the
bag and it happens not to be a red marble. What is the probability that it is a blue marble?
14. A coin is tossed twice. Note that the probability of getting a head is 𝑝 and the probability of getting
a tail is thus 1 − 𝑝. Given that the first toss resulted in a head, determine the probability that both
tosses result in heads.
15. Show that the conditional 𝑃(𝐴 ∣ 𝐵), where 𝑃(𝐵) > 0, satisfies the three axioms of probability
16. In a well-shuffled deck of cards, we observe the bottom card is a red card, what is the probability
that the bottom card is the king of hearts?
17. There is a bag containing six red balls, four white balls, and five blue balls. Three balls are drawn
at random successively from the bag. Determine the probability that they are drawn in the order
red, white and blue, if each ball is (a) replaced, and (b) not replaced.
18. A box contains 25 cookies of which 𝑥 of them are bad. Two cookies are eaten one by one.
Assuming the probability that both cookies are good is 0.57, determine the value of 𝑥.
19. A and B play a game in which they alternately toss a pair of fair dice. The one who is first to get a
sum of seven wins the game. Noting that A tosses first, which one is more likely to win first?
20. There are two bags of balls, the first bag contains five red balls and four blue balls and the second
bag contains three red balls and six blue balls. One ball is taken from the first bag and put in the
second bag, without seeing what the color of the ball is. Determine the probability that a ball now
drawn from the second bag is blue.

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21. At a university, 60% of students live on campus, 70% have a meal plan, and 40% do both. Are living
on campus and having a meal plan statistically independent?
22. Consider rolling a single fair die, and define two events 𝐻 = {1, 2, 3, 4} and 𝐽 = {3, 4, 5}. Are
events 𝐻 and 𝐽 mutually exclusive? Are they statistically independent?
23. Two numbers 𝑥 and 𝑦 are selected at random each between 0 and 2. Let events 𝐴, 𝐵, and 𝐶 be
defined as follows: 𝐴 = {1 < 𝑥 < 2}, 𝐵 = {1 < 𝑦 < 2}, and 𝐶 = {𝑥 > 𝑦} . Are there any two
events that are statistically independent?
24. Suppose A is the event that a randomly generated bit sequence of length four begins with a 1 and
B is the event that the four-bit sequence contains an even number of 1s. Assuming all 16 bit
sequences of length four are equally likely, are the events A and B statistically independent?
25. The suppliers A, B, and C have records of providing microchips with 10%, 5%, and 20% defective
rates, respectively. Suppose 20%, 35 %, and 45% of the current supply come from the suppliers A,
B, and C, respectively. If a randomly selected microchip is defective, what is the probability that it
comes from the supplier B?
26. Suppose we have two coins, one fair that is 𝑃(𝐻) = 𝑃(𝑇) = 0.5, and one is unfair with 𝑃(𝐻) =
0.51 and 𝑃(𝑇) = 0.49, where 𝑃(𝐻) represents the probability of getting a head in a coin toss
and 𝑃(𝑇) represents the probability of a tail. In case 1, we pick one of the two coins at random,
i.e. with the probability of 0.5, toss it once, put it back, pick one of the two coins at random again,
and toss it. In case 2, we pick one of the two coins at random and toss it twice. In each of these
two cases, determine the probability that both tosses are heads. In the second case, determine
which one of the two coins is more likely to have been picked.
27. In assessing the strength of evidence in a legal investigation, a police detective always approaches
his two informers to get information. The detective gets his information 80% of the time from the
informer A who tells a lie 75% of the time and 20% of the time from the informer B who tells a lie
60% of the time. Suppose the information the detective has received is truthful, what is the
probability that the information was received from the informer B?
28. Suppose in a city, there are five car brands A, B, C, D, and E, that share 1%, 4%, 15%, 30%, and 50%
of the market share, respectively. The probabilities that a car will need major repair during their
first five years of purchase for brands A, B, C, D, and E are 1%, 4%, 15%, 30%, and 50%, respectively.
(a) Determine the probability that a car in this city will need major repair during its first five years
of purchase. (b) Suppose a car needs major repair during its first five years of purchase, determine
the probability that it is made by the manufacturer A or B or C or D or E.
29. In a certain city, 20% of teenage drivers text while driving. The research record indicates that 40%
of those who text have a car accident and 1% of those who do not text have a car accident. If a
teenage driver has an accident, what is the probability that he was texting?
30. An exam consists of three types of questions: 20% essay-type questions, 50% short-answer
questions, and 30% multiple-choice questions. A student knows how to answer correctly 80% of
the essay-type questions, 50% of the short-answer questions, and 70% of the multiple-choice
questions. What is the probability that her answer to a question is correct?
31. Prove the following, which is known as Boole’s inequality or the union bound:
𝑛 𝑛

P(⋃ 𝐴𝑖 ) ≤ ∑ 𝑃(𝐴𝑖 )
𝑖=1 𝑖=1

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