Stat 134: solutions to some problems from Chapter 2

Michael Lugo
February 10, 2011
These are the suggested problems from Chapter 2 to do in advance of the exam.

2.2.2: normal approximation for a biased coin

Let H be the number of heads in 400 tosses of a biased coin with P(heads)
= 0.51. Then H is
approximately normal with mean 4000.51 = 204 and standard deviation 400 0.51 0.49 =
9.998. (Well just call this 10.) 



1901/2204
(a) P (190 H 210) 210+1/2204

= (0.65) (1.45) =
10
10
(0.65) (1 (1.45)) = (0.7422)
=0.6687.
 (1 0.9265)


220+1/2204
2101/2204
(b) P (210 H 220)
=
= (1.65) (0.45) =
10
10
(1.65) (1 (0.45))
= (0.9505)

 (1 0.6736)
 = 0.6241.
200+1/2204
2001/2204
(c) P (200)

= (0.35)(0.45) = (1(0.35))
10
10
(1 (0.45)) = (0.45)
(0.35)

 = .6736 .6368
 = .0368.
210+1/2204
2101/2204
(d) P (210)

= (0.65) (0.55) = 0.7422 0.7088 =

10
10
0.0334.

2.2.6: opposing voters

The number of voters who oppose the measure is binomial with n = 200, p = 0.45. It can

therefore be approximated by a normal with mean = np = 90, = npq 7.04.

(a) The probability that exactly 90 voters oppose the measure is about ((90.5)/))
((89.5 )/) = (0.071) (0.071) = 2(0.071) 1. We use (0.07) = 0.5279, the
nearest value in the table, and get the answer 2(0.5279) 1 = 0.0558. (A more careful
estimation of (0.071), assuming that (z) is linear for z between 0.07 and 0.08, would give
0.0566.)
(b) The probability that more than half the voters oppose the measure is 1 ((99.5
)/) = 1 (1.35) = 1 0.9115 = 0.0885.

2.2.10: coin tossing

The number of heads that any student gets is binomial withn = 200, p = 1/2; this is

approximated by the normal with = np = 100, = npq = 50 7.1. The probability

that any individual student gets exactly 100 heads is therefore approximately ((100.5
100)/7.1) ((99.5 100)/7.1) = (0.07) (0.07) = 2(0.07) 1 = 2(0.5279) 1 =
0.0558. The probability that none of the 30 students gets exactly 100 heads is (10.0558)3 0
0.18.

2.3.1: consecutive odds determine the distribution

We have P (1) = R(1)P (0), P (2) = R(2)P (1) = R(2)P (1)P (0), and so on. In general
P (k) = R(k)R(k 1) R(1)P (0).
We want to eliminate P (0), though, to get a formula entirely in terms of R(). Since P (0) +
P (1) + + P (n) = 1, we have
P (0) + R(1)P (0) + R(2)R(1)P (0) + + R(n)R(n 1) R(1)P (0) = 1
and factoring out P (0) gives
P (0)[1 + R(1) + R(2)R(1) + + R(n)R(n 1) R(1)] = 1.
Solving for P (0) gives
P (0) =

1
.
1 + R(1) + R(2)R(1) + + R(n)R(n 1) R(1)

Plugging this back into our first formula gives

P (k) =

R(k)R(k 1) R(1)
1 + R(1) + R(2)R(1) + + R(n)R(n 1) R(1)

which is the formula we want.

2.3.2: an exact probability

A fair coin is tossed 10,000 times. The probability of getting exactly 5000 heads is closer to
0.01 than any of the other given numbers.
Why? The number of heads is binomially distributed with n = 10000, p =
0.5. This is approximately normally distributed with average 5000 and standard deviation 10000 .5 .5 =
50. 5000 heads is the most common value for this binomial distribution, and thus
(at
leastapproximately) for the corresponding normal distribution. This value is 1/
2 =
1/50 2

0.01.
(A
more
precise
value
is
0.008;
its
useful
to
keep
in
mind
that
2 2.5

and 1/ 2 0.4.)
2

2.4.6: balls in a box

(a) The distribution of the number of black balls is approximately Poisson with mean 2. The
probability of getting exactly two black balls is therefore e2 22 /2! = 2/e2 . The probability
of getting less than two black balls is e2 20 /0! = e2 21 /1! = 3/e2 . The probability of getting
more than two black balls is one minus the sum of these, or 1 5/e2 . e2 is between 7 and 8,
so 3/e2 is the largest.
(b) The chance that two series of 1000 draws produces the same number of black balls is
P (0 black in each series) + P (1 black in each series) + P (2 black in each series) +
But the two series are independent, so P (k black in each series) is the square of the probability that k balls are black in one series. So the probability we want is
 2 k 2
X
e 2
.
k!
k=0
I dont know a nice way to compute this. It can be written in terms of Bessel functions.
But you can just add up, say, the terms from k = 0 to k = 11 to get 0.207001921.
(A challenge: for large ,
the probability that two draws from the Poisson distribution
with average is about C/ , for some constant C. Whats the constant, and why? Hint:
the Poisson and binomial are both approximations to the normal.)

2.4.9: cereal prizes

Instead of calculating the probability that they collect more than 45 prizes, well calculate
the probability that there are less than 52 45 = 7 weeks in which they dont collect a
prize. The number of weeks in which they dont get a prize is binomially distributed with
n = 52, p = 0.05, assuming all the boxes of cereal are independent. This is approximately
Poisson with mean 2.6. So we want the probability that Poisson with mean 2.6 is less than
7, which is
6
X
e2.6 2.6n
0.98283
n!
k=0
.

2.5.2: black and red cards

(a) The probability that the first card is red and the second two are black is (26/52)(26/51)(25/50) =
13/102 0.1275.
(b) The probability that exactly one card is red is the probability that we have RBB, BRB,
or BBR for the color sequence. This is
26 26 25 26 26 25 26 25 26
26 26 25
13
13
+
+
=3
=3
=
= 0.3824
52 51 50 52 51 50 52 51 50
52 51 50
102
34
3

.
Alternatively, use the formula for sampling without replacement on page 125 of the text.
(Well let red be good and black be bad although it doesnt matter which way we do
it.) This gives
 
3(26)(26)(25)
3 (26)1 (26)2
=
P (1 red, 2 black) =
(52)3
(52)(51)(50)
1
or



26 26
26 325
P (1 red, 2 black) = 1 52
2 =
22100
3
both of which are also 13/34, of course.

2.5.8: a raffle

Imagine that the tickets are numbered 1 through 100; person 1 has tickets 1 through 10,
person 2 has tickets 11 through 20, and so on.
There are 100 99 98 = 970200 ways to pick the three winning tickets (where order
matters), all equally likely.
(a) The number of ways in which person 1 can get all three winning tickets is 10 9 8 =
720, and similarly for each other person. The number of ways in which all three winning
tickets can go to the same person is therefore 720 10 = 7200, and the probability of this
occurring is 7200/970200 = 4/539 0.0074.
(b) For there to be three different winners:
- there are 100 ways that we can choose the first winning ticket. Say A has it.
- then there are 90 ways that we can choose the second winning ticket; it is any of the
tickets not held by A. Say B has this ticket.
- then there are 80 ways that we can choose the third winning ticket; it is any of the
tickets not held by A or B.
Thus there are 100 90 80 = 720000 ways in which all three winning tickets go to
different people, and the probability of this occurring is 720000/970200 = 400/539 0.7421.
(c) For there to be two different winners, there must not be one or three winners; the
answer is therefore 1 (4/539 + 400/539) = 135/539 0.2505.
But lets say you wanted to compute this from scratch. Then the probability that the
first winning ticket and the second winning ticket are held by the same person, and the third
one is held by a different person, is (100 9 90)/(100 99 98) = 45/539. The probability
that the first and third winners are held by one person and the second by another, or that
the second and third winners are held by one person and the first by another, are the same
by symmetry. The answer is thus 3 (45/539) = 135/539.