EE 170.

Signals and Noise in Communication Systems

Problem Set 3

• A student is known to arrive late for class 40% of the time. If the class meets
five times a week. Find: the probability that the student is late for at least
three classes in a given week; the probability that the student will not be late
at all during a given week.

• Three guns, each containing 5 chambers, are placed in a box in such a way
that the probability of picking gun 1 is 0.25, the probability of picking gun2 is
0.45 and the probability of picking gun3 is 0.3. Gun 1 has 1 loaded chamber,
gun 2 has 2 loaded chambers and gun 3 has 3 loaded chambers. A man is
blindfolded, forced to choose a gun from the box, place it to his head and pull
the trigger. If the man survived this ordeal, what is the probability that he
chose gun 2 from the box?

• A submarine attempts to sink an aircraft carrier. It will be successful only if

two or more torpedoes hit the carrier. If the sub fires three torpedoes and the
probability of a hit is 0.4 for each torpedo, what is the probability that the
carrier will be sunk? What is the probability that the carrier will survive that
attack?

• In a culture used for biological research the growth of unavoidable bacteria

occasionally spoils results of an experiment that requires at least three out of
four cultures to be unspoiled to obtain a single datum point. Experience has
shown that about 6 of every 100 cultures are randomly spoiled by the
bacteria. If the experiment requires three simultaneously derived, unspoiled
data point for success, we find the probability of success for any given set of
12 cultures (three data points of four cultures each); we treat individual
datum points first as a Bernoulli trial problem with N=4 and p= P{good
culture}=0.94. Find the probability of a successful experiment.

• The probability of each switch being closed in the figure below is 0.7. Find the
probability of having a continuous connection between the two end terminals.