BAYES’ THEOREM (Rev.

Thomas Bayes)
 Suppose U1, U2,  , Un are mutually exclusive events whose union is the entire sample space. Let E be an event
with nonzero probability. Then

P(U i ∩ E) P (U i ∩ E) P ( U i ) P ( E|U i )
P ( U i|E ) = = =
P(E) P ( U 1 ∩ E ) + P ( U 2 ∩ E ) +⋯+ P(U n ∩ E) P ( U 1 ) P ( E|U 1 ) + P ( U 2 ) P ( E|U 2 ) +⋯+ P ( U n) P ( E|U

Illustrative Examples:
1. The experiment is to choose a marble from either an urn or a box at random. The urn contains 1 red and 2 white
marbles and the box contains 3 red and 2 white marbles. Find the probability that the marble came from urn
given that it is a red marble.
2. Three professors administer a common exam to their classes of 40 students each. Suppose that 32 of the
students in class A, 30 of the students in class B, and 30 of the students in class C pass the exam. If a student
who has passed the exam is chosen at random, what is the probability that the students is in class A?

Exercise #6
1. The experiment is to choose at random either an urn or a box, each containing some yellow and green marbles,
and then select a marble. The urn has 4 yellow and 6 green marbles. The box has 7 yellow and 5 green marbles.
Find the probability of each event.
a. The urn was chosen given that the marble is yellow.
b. The box was chosen given that the marble is green.

2. In order to measure the degree of visibility of an ad campaign, interviewers often ask consumers if they can
remember seeing certain ads. An advertising firm questioned 1000 TV viewers and asked if they recalled seeing
a particular advertisement. They were then asked if they had bought the product recently. Of the 110 people
who definitely remembered the commercial, 60 had bought the product recently. Of the 330 who vaguely
remembered the commercial, 66 had bought the product recently. Of the 560 who did not remember seeing the
commercial, 40 had bought the product recently. Find the probability that a person definitely remembered
seeing the ad given that a person bought the product recently.

3. A shelf holds two boxes of ornaments. The blue box contains 7 good ornaments and three defective ornaments;
the white box contains 4 good ornaments and 1 defective ornament. A box is selected and one ornament is
chosen from it. If the ornament is good, what is the probability that the blue box was chosen?

4. A company produces bolts at three factories A, B, and C. Factory A produces 40% of the number of bolts, of
which 0.1% are defective. Factory B produces 35%, of which 0.15% are defective, and C produces 25%, of which
0.05% are defective. If a defective bolt is found among the total output, what is the probability that it came from
a) Factory A? b) factory B? c) factory C?

5. Olive Construction Company is determining whether it should submit a bid for a new shopping center. In the
past, Olive’s main competitor, Base Construction Company, has submitted bids 70% of the time. If Base
Construction Company does not bid on a job, the probability that Olive Construction Company will get the job is
0.50. If Base Construction Company bids on a job, the probability that Olive Construction Company will get the
job is 0.25. If Olive Construction Company gets the job, what is the probability that Base Construction Company
did not bid?

6. A municipal bond service has three rating categories (A, B, and C). Suppose that in the past year, of the
municipal bonds issued throughout the United States, 70% were rated A, 20% were rated B, and 10% were rated
C. Of the municipal bonds rated A, 50% were issued by cities, 40% by suburbs, and 10% by rural areas. Of the
municipal bonds rated B, 60% were issued by cities, 20% by suburbs, and 20% by rural areas. Of the municipal
bonds rated C, 90% were issued by cities, 5% by suburbs, and 5% by rural areas. If a new municipal bond is to be
issued by a city, what is the probability that it will receive an A rating?