ECES 521: Probability and Random Variables

Fall 2010-2011 Unit 3

Cody A. Ray
3) A pair of fair dice is rolled 10 times. Find the probability that “seven” will show at least once.
A pair of fair dice can sum to “seven” in six ways, by the unordered pairs (1,6), (2,5), and (3,4).
The total number of possible outcomes is 6 × 6 = 36. Therefore,

6
P (sum is 7) =
36

Since we’re trying to find an “at least” criteria, it’s easiest to compute the probability of the
complement (i.e., the probability that “seven” will never show), and use the identity

P (E) + P (Ē) = 1 → P (Ē) = 1 − P (E)

to compute the “at least” probability. Then the complement, that the sum is not 7, has probability

30 5
P (sum is not 7) = =
36 6

A roll of the dice is considered an i.i.d experiment, so we can calculate the probability that we
don’t roll a single “seven” in 10 rolls is ( 65 )10 . Therefore, the probability that we roll at least once
“seven” is

5
1 − ( )10
6

4) A coin with p{h} = p = 1 − q is tossed n times. Show that the probability that the number of
heads is even equals 0.5[1 + (q − p)n ].
We know that this experiment can be modeled as a binomial distribution of parameters n and p,
such that X ∼ Bin(n, p). Therefore, we know that
 
n k
P (X = k) = p (1 − p)n−k
k

We know that P (k = even) = P (k = 0) + P (k = 2) + P (k = 4) + · · ·. We also know that q = 1 − p.

Therefore,
   
n n 2 n−2 n 4
P (k = even) = q + p (1 − p) + p (1 − p)n−4 + · · ·
2 4

Working backwards from the desired number, we expand (q − p)n by applying the binomial expan-
sion theorem:
n            
n
X n n−r r
r n n 0 n n−1 1 n n 0 n n n−1 1 n n 0
(q−p) = (−1) q p = q p − q p +· · ·+ q p =q − q p +· · ·+ q p
r=0
r 0 1 n 1 n

We can see that we need to get ride of every other term, and these are negative in the equation
above. By adding the positive binomial expansion of (q + p)n these terms cancel.
I haven’t yet determined the remaining steps in this derivation.

1
5) Hypergeometric series) A shipment contains K good and N − K defective components. We pick
at random n ≤ K components and test them. Show that the probability p that k of the tested
components are good equals (compare with (3-39))
   
K N −K N
p=
k n−k n

There are a total of N components in the ship, and there are N

n ways to pick n components at
random. Similarly, there are K


k ways to pick k good components out of the K good components
N −K


and n−k ways to pick n − k components out of the N − K defective components. Thus, there
−K K
are Nn−k N




k ways of picking k good components and n − k defective components out of n total
components. Hence, the probability p that k of the tested components are good is
   
K N −K N
p=
k n−k n