MATH 240 HOMEWORK I

SOLUTIONS

1. Suppose traffic engineers have coordinated the timing of two traffic

lights to encourage a run of green lights. In particular, the timing was
designed so that with probability 0.8 a driver will find the second light to
have the same color as the first. Assuming the first light is equally likely
to be red or green,
(a) what is the probability P(G2) that the second light is green?
(b) what is P(W), the probability that you wait for at least one light?
(c) what is P(G1 | R2), the conditional probability of a green first light
given a red second light?

A1. a) P(G2G1) + P(R2R1) = 0.8 and P(R1) = P(G1) = 1/2

P(G2/G1)P(G1) + P(R2/R1)P(R1) = 0.8
P(G2/G1) = 0.8 & P(R2/R1) = 0.8

P(G2) = P(G2/R1)P(R1) + P(G2/G1)P(G1)

= 0.2(1/2) + 0.8(1/2)
= 0.5
b) P(W) = P(G2R1) + P(R2G1) = P(G2/R1)P(R1) + P(R2/G1)P(G1)
= 0.2(1/2) + 0.2(1/2) = 0.2
c) P(G1/R2) = P(G1R2) / P(R2) = P(R2/G1)P(G1) / [P(R2/G1)P(G1) +
P(R2/R1)P(R1)]
= 0.2(1/2) / [0.2(1/2)+0.8(1/2)]
= 0.2

2. A manufacturing plant makes radios that each contain an integrated

circuit (IC) supplied by three sources A, B, and C. The probability that
the IC in a radio came from one of the sources is 1/3, the same for all
sources. ICs are known to be defective with probabilities 0.001, 0.003,
and 0.002 for sources A, B, and C, respectively.
(a) What is the probability that any given radio will contain a defective
IC?
(b) If a radio contains a defective IC, find the probability it came from
source A.

A2. a) P(D) = P(D/A)P(A)+ P(D/B)P(B)+ P(D/C)P(C)

= 0.001(1/3)+ 0.003(1/3)+ 0.002(1/3)
= 0.002
b) P(A/D) = P(D/A)P(A) / P(D) = 0.001(1/3) / 0.002 = 1/6
3. You have two biased coins. Coin A comes up heads with probabaility ¼.
Coin B comes up heads with probability ¾. However, you are not sure
which is which so you choose a coin randomly and you flip it. If the flip
is heads, you guess that the flipped coin is B; othervise you guess that the
flipped coin is A. Let events A and B designate which coin was picked.
What is the probability P(C) that your guess is correct?

A3. P(C) = P(BH) + P(AT) = P(H/B)P(B) + P(T/A)P(A)

= (3/4)(1/2) + (3/4)(1/2)
= 3/4

4. a) A pair of fair dice is rolled ten times. Find the probability that
‘eight’ will show at least once.
b) A pair of fair dice are rolled. What is probability that the second die
lands on a higher value than does the first?

A4. a) P('eight') = P({(4,4)+(2,6)+(6,2)+(5,3)+(3,5)}) = 5/36

E: ‘eight’ will show at least once
E': ‘eight’ will never show
P(E) = 1- P(E') = 1 - C(10,0)*(5/36)^0*(31/36)^10 = 1 - 0.2242
= 0.7758
b) The elements of the sample space where the second die is strictly larger
in value than the first:

Since each element of sample space has a probability 1/36,

P(E) = 15/36 = 5/12 = 0.4167

5. (a)  Assuming drivers are independent, if 5% of the drivers fail to stop

at a red light, find the probability that at least 2 of the next 100 drivers
fail to stop.
(b) A binary transmission channel introduces bit errors with probability
0.15. Calculate the probability that there are less than 20 errors in 100 bit
transmissions.

A5. a) P('A driver fail to stop at a red light')=p=0.05

P(E) = 1 - P('0 driver out of 100 fail to stop at red light') - P('1 driver out of
100 fail to stop at red light')
= 1 - C(100,0)*(0.05)^0*(0.95)^100 - C(100,1)*(0.05)^1*(0.95)^99
= 1 - 0.0059 - 0.0312
= 0.9629

b) P('single bit error') = p = 0.15

19

P(E) =  C (100, k ) * (0.15)

k 0
k
* (0.85)100  k