Math 329: Probability

Homework 01A
Hanadi Jusufovic

Problem 1: Look up the “conjunction fallacy” on Wikipedia, and describe it in terms of set probabilities
using the notation consistent with our book. Start by stating the problem (“Linda is 31 years old...”), then
define events that pertain to the problem and explain why one probability is strictly smaller than the other.

”Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy As a student, she
was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear
demonstrations.”

Two events that we are looking at are:

1. Linda is a bank teller.
2. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
The question is, which one is more probable?
Most people would say 2, but the probability of two events occurring together is always less than or equal
to the probability of either one happening alone. That is:
V V
P (A B) ≤ P (A) and P (A B) ≤ P (B) because the events are independent of each other.
That means that the probability of P (A|B) = P (A). and the P (B|A) = P (B). The probability of both
events happening at the same time, that is, Linda is a bank teller (say event A) and Linda is active in the
T
feminist movement (say event B), is given by P (A B) = P (A) ∗ P (B).
Even if we pick a very small probability that A, say P(A) = 0.05, and very high probability that B, P(B) =
T
0.95, the probability of both events occuring together would be P (A B) = P (A) ∗ P (B) = 0.05 ∗ 0.95 =
0.0475.
T
We can see that P (A B) ≤ P (A)

Problem 2: Suppose you have ten-sided dice (they sell these at One-eyed Jaques on Cary Street, by the
way). Assuming the dice are fair, what is the probability the sum of three rolled dice is 28?

We start by calculating the possible outcomes. The total number of possible outcomes is equal to 103 = 1000.
Now we want to know how many of those outcomes will have sum equal to 28.
Firstly, the most obvious triplet that satisfies this is (10, 10, 8). Then we have (10, 9, 9). For both of those
triplets, we can arrange them into 3 combinations. For example for (10, 10, 8) we also have (8, 10, 10) and
(10, 8, 10). If we let A be an event that the sum of 3 dice sum up to 28, we have
A = {(10, 10, 8), (8, 10, 10), (10, 8, 10), (10, 9, 9), (9, 9, 10), (9, 10, 9)}.
6
P (sum of 3 rolled dice is 28)= 1000

Problem 3: After the campus concert season finished for the semester, it was reported that 60% of the
students attended the symphony event and 25% attended the ballet event. It turns out that 35% attended
neither. If a student is randomly selected from the college find the probability that (a) the student attended
both the symphony and ballet, (b) attended the symphony and not the ballet, and (c) skipped at least one
of the two events.

1
Let A be the event that a student attended the symphony, P(A) = 0.6. Let B be the event that a student
attended the ballet, P(B) = 0.25. If a student attended neither, we can describe this as P ((A ∪ B)c ) = 0.35.
P (A ∪ B) = 1 − P ((A ∪ B)c ) = 0.65.

a) We know that P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) − P (A ∩ B), therefore

P (A ∩ B) = P (A) + P (B) − P (A ∪ B) = 0.6 + 0.25 − 0.65 = 0.2
b) P (A ∩ B c ) = P (A) − P (A ∩ B) = 0.6 − 0.2 = 0.4
c) P (A ∩ B)c = 1 − P (A ∩ B) = 1 − 0.2 = 0.8

Problem 4: From a standard deck of 52 playing cards, there are four Aces. A player chooses a card at
random (without replacing the card to the deck) and keeps choosing until an Ace is drawn. What is the
probability the player will draw an Ace in the first four tries?
48
P(draw four non aces) = 52 ∗ 47 46 45
51 ∗ 50 ∗ 49
Then the probability to draw an ace in first four tries is given by:
48
P(drawing an ace in first four tries) = 1 − ( 52 ∗ 47 46 45
51 ∗ 50 ∗ 49 ) = 0.28126

It is easier to think of the complement: drawing four non-Aces. There is a 48/52 of drawing the first non-Ace,
but that probability changes to 47/51 on the second draw, given no Ace was drawn in the first.