MTL108: Tutorial Sheet 1

1. Prove that the set of positive rational numbers Q+ is countable.

2. Prove that the Borel σ-field generated by open open intervals of R is equal to the σ field generated by
the collection of all the intervals (−∞, a], a ∈ Q, are the same.

3. An item is composed of 5 components, each of which is either working or failed. Consider an experiment
that consists of observing the status of each component, and let the outcome be 1 if the component is
working and 0 if it is failed. Describe the sample space. Is it finite? Suppose that the system will work
if components 1 and 2 are both working, or if components 3 and 4 are both working, or if components
1, 3, and 5 are all working. Let W be the event that the system will work. Describe W . Let A be an
event that components 4 and 5 both failed. Describe the event W ∩ A.

4. A club has five members, A, B, C, D, and E. It is required to select a chairman and a secretary.
Assuming that one member cannot occupy both positions, write the sample space associated with
these selections. What is the event that member A is an officeholder?

5. Write the set of all outcomes Ω for the following random experiments: (a) We toss a coin until we see
two consecutive tails. We record the total number of coin tosses.
(b) A customer arrives at a bank and waits in the line. We observe T, which is the total time (in
hours) that the customer waits in the line. The bank has a strict policy that no customer waits more
than 20 minutes under any circumstances.
(c) Five dots are placed at random on a 8 × 8 grid in such a way that no cell contains more than one
dot. How many elements are there in Ω?
(d) Someone is looking for a top-floor apartment. There is a building with 7 floors, 8 apartments per
floor and two vacant apartments. What is the number of elements in Ω?

6. Let Ω = R and S be Borel field of∫R. Does P define a probability on S?

1 1
(a) For each interval I, P (I) = dx
π I 1 + x2
(b) P (I) = 1 if I is an interval of finite length and 0 otherwise.

7. A fair die is rolled three times independently. Let E be the event the first number is bigger than the
second one which itself is bigger than the third one. Find P(E).

8. In 2n tosses of a fair coin, what is the probability that more tails occur than the heads?

9. A biased coin (with probability of obtaining a Head equals p > 0) is tossed repeatedly and indepen-
dently until the first head is observed. Compute the probability that the first head appears at an even
numbered toss.
5 The Manhattan distance of a point (x, y) in the plane to the origin (0, 0) is defined as |x| + |y|. You
choose at random a point in the unit square {(x, y) : −1 ≤ x, y ≤ 1}. What is the probability that the
Manhattan distance of this point to the point origin is no more than a for a ∈ (0, 2)?
(Hint: P(A) assigned to each subset A of the given square is the area. Take a subset in a the given
square as A = {(x, y) : |x| + |y| ≤ a}, and discuss the case when a ∈ (0, 1) and a ∈ [1, 2); draw picture
for understanding])

10. You choose at random a point inside a rectangle whose sides have the lengths 2 and 3. What is the
probability that the distance of the point to the closest side of the rectangle is no more than a given
value a with 0 < a < 1?
(Hint: The sample space is Ω = {(x, y) : 0 ≤ x ≤ 2, 0 ≤ y ≤ 3}. Let A be the subset of points from
the rectangle for which the distance to the closest side of the rectangle is larger than a. Draw picture
to see A is a rectanle. See, what is area of A to answer probability)
11. Find the probability that the sum of two randomly chosen positive numbers (both ≤ 1) will not exceed
1 and that their product will be ≤ 29 .
(Hint: Draw figure and identify the area to be found; use calculus to find area and answer for proba-
bility).)

12. A player tosses a fair coin and to score one point for every head and two points for every tail turned
up. He is to play on until his score reaches or passes a given number N . If pN is the chance of attaining
exactly a score N , then find the value of p30 . (Hint: What are the mutually exclusive ways of scoring
N in throw of coin. Build a recurrence relation involving pN , and then conclude.)

13. Suppose there are two full bowls of cookies. Bowl 1 has 10 chocolate chip and 30 plain cookies, while
bowl 2 has 20 of each. Our friend Raj picks a bowl at random, and then picks a cookie at random.
We may assume there is no reason to believe Raj treats one bowl differently from another, likewise
for the cookies. The cookie turns out to be a plain one. How probable is it that Raj picked it out of
Bowl 1?

14. 70% of the light aircraft that disappear while in flight in a certain country are subsequently discovered.
Of the aircraft that are discovered, 60% have an emergency locator, whereas 90% of the aircraft not
discovered do not have such a locator. Suppose that a light aircraft has disappeared. If it has an
emergency locator, what is the probability that it will be discovered?

15. Customers are used to evaluate preliminary product designs. In the past, 95% of highly successful
products received good reviews, 60% of moderately successful products received good reviews, and
10of poor products received good reviews. In addition, 40% of products have been highly successful,
35% have been moderately successful, and 25% have been poor products. If a new design attains a
good review, what is the probability that it will be a highly successful product? If a product does not
attain a good review, then what is the probability that it will be a highly successful product?