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Homework 1 Solutions
Math 425: Summer 2017
due Friday, July 7

All solutions to written homework problems must be clearly written, with explanations.
A number or sequence of equations without explanation will not get credit. You are
encouraged to work with other students on the homework, but solutions must be written
independently. Homework is due at the start of class (1 pm) on the due date.

1. Prospective jurors for a court case are given a juror ID number. At a specific court the
ID numbers are 9 digits long. If the juror pool consists of 40 people and ID numbers
are all equally likely, what is the probability that two or more of them will have the
same last four digits in their ID number? Remember, always show work and explain.
Solution: Lets look the complement of this event, which is the event that all 40 jurors
have different digits in the last four places on their ID numbers. Given the first jurors
last four digits, there are 104 1 = 9999 ways to pick the second, 104 2 ways for the
third, and so on. The number of ways to pick four distinct digits for all 40 prospective
jurors is therefore
10000!
N = (104 )(104 1)(104 2) (104 39) = 10000 9999 9961 = ,
9960!
while the number of possible four digit combinations for them all is M = (104 )40 , so
the probability we want is N/M 0.925. Taking the complement, the probability that
at least two jurors have the same last four digits is 1 0.925 = 0.075, or about 7.5%.

2. Consider the set of vectors S = {~v = [x1 , , xn ] : xi {0, 1}}that is, the set of
vectors with n components, each of which is either 0 or 1.

(a) How many vectors are in S?

(b) Now count the vectors in S another way to demonstrate why the binomial coeffi-
cients have the following sum:
k            
X n n n n n n
= + + + + + + = 2n
j=0
j 0 1 2 n1 n

Solution: There are 2n vectors in S. We can count them in two ways.

First, since each entry of the vector is chosen from a set of two numbers (either 0 or
1), and since there are n entries, we see by the Basic Principle of Counting that there
are 2n possibilities.
 Second, we can first count the vector(s) in S with zero 1s, then count the vectors with
one 1, then with two 1s, etc. up to the vector(s) in S with n 1s. (You could replace
1 with 0 and the counting would go similarly.)
n


There is only one vector in S with no 1s: the vector of all zeros. We note that 0
= 1.
Next, there are n1 = n vectors in S with one 1:
we only need choose the location for

the 1 from the n possibilities. Next, there are n2 vectors with two 1s, since this is the

number of ways to choose their locations. In general, for k = 3, 4, . . . , n, there are nk
vectors. Combining these tallies, and comparing to our first counting method, gives
the result.

3. Let E, F , and G be three events. Provide a strong argument, using the axioms of
probability, that the following is true:

P (EF GC EGF C ) = P (EF ) + P (EG) 2P (EF G).

Solution: Because F and F C are necessarily disjoint, EF GC and EGF C must also
be disjoint, so we know that

P (EF GC EGF C ) = P (EF GC ) + P (EGF C )

(by the axiom for unions of events, axiom 3). Then EF = EF G EF GC , a union of
disjoint events, so P (EF GC ) = P (EF ) P (EF G). Similarly P (EGF C ) = P (EG)
P (EF G). Plugging these into our first expression we have the desired result:

P (EF GC EGF C ) = P (EF ) P (EF G) + P (EG) P (EF G)

= P (EF ) + P (EG) 2P (EF G).

4. Suppose that in one of your classes you are given 20 questions, and told that the final
exam will consist of 8 of them, chosen randomly.
(a) If you work out how to do 12 of the problems, what is the probability that you
will be able to work at least 7 of those on the final?
(b) How many problems do you need to have worked out to have a 90% probability
of being able to solve all 8 of those on the final?
Solution: (a) First consider the probability that all eight problems are known. For
this to be the case, all 8
of those selected for the final must be from those 12
that
20 12
are known. There are 8 ways to pick the 8 problems on the final, and 8 ways
to pick them so that they are among
20
those33that are known. Thus the probability
12
of knowing all 8 is P (K8 ) = 8 / 8
= 8398 0.0039. If seven of the problems
on the final are
known, there are 12 7
ways to pick those problems from the known
8
problems and 1
ways
to
pick1056
the last problem from those that arent known, so we
have P (K7 ) = 127
8
1
/ 20
8
= 20,995
0.0503. The chance that we will be able to work
1056 33 2277
at least 7 problems is therefore P (K7 K8 ) = 20995 + 8398 = 41,990 0.0542. (Note
that the sum is contingent on the events K7 and K8 being disjoint, which they are.)
 (b) We can determine this by working out successive values of the probability for
decreasing numbers of known problems. Clearly if we
know

all 20 problems the prob-
19 20
ability is 100%. If we know 19, we have P (K8 ) = 8 / 8 = 0.6, which is insufficient,
so the only way to attain 90% certainty is to have learned all 20 problems.

5. Suppose that we roll three fair six-sided dice.

(a) What is the probability that we will see at least two values of four or greater?
(b) Next suppose that we sum the face values of the three dice. What is the probability
that the sum will be a 15 or greater? How many times would we have to roll to
have a better than 60% chance of getting a 15 or greater?
(c) What is the probability that the sum of the two lower numbers rolled is less than
or equal to 4? If one die is red and the other two are white, and we add the value
on the red to the lower of the values on the white dice, what is the probability
that the sum is less than or equal to 4?

Solution: (a) We can find this by counting, or by considering unions of events. Con-
sider the events Ej (j = 1, 2, 3), that the jth die shows a four or better. Note that
P (Ej ) = 1/2. Then the probability we want is

P (E1 E2 E1 E3 E2 E3 ) = P ((E1 E2 E1 E3 ) E2 E3 )
= P (E1 E2 E1 E3 ) + P (E2 E3 ) P ((E1 E2 E1 E3 )E2 E3 )
= P (E1 E2 E1 E3 ) + P (E2 E3 ) P (E1 E2 E3 )
= P (E1 E2 ) + P (E1 E3 ) + P (E2 E3 ) 2P (E1 E2 E3 ).

Each of the probabilities P (Ei Ej ) = 41 (since P (Ei Ej ) = 21 12 , or by counting:

9
P (Ei Ej ) = 36 ), and P (E1 E2 E3 ) = 18 (similarly), so P (E1 E2 E1 E3 E2 E3 ) = 21 .

We can also do this by counting. There are 63 = 216 different rolls of the dice,
considering order. We may count the number of ways to get at least two values of 4
or greater by counting the number of ways to get exactly two such values, and adding
the number of ways to get three such. For the first, let  be a number between 1 and
3 inclusive. Then the rolls that give exactly two values of 4 or greater are (4, 4, ),
(4, 5, ), (4, 6, ), (5, 5, ), (5, 6, ) and (6, 6, ) all give at least two values of 4 or
greater. For each there are 3 ways to get the roll, and either 3 or 6 permutations of
the rolls, depending on whether there is a repeated value. Thus, for these rolls we have
3 (3 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 6 + 3) = 81 ways of getting the desired result.

Now consider rolls that have all three dice with 4 or greater. These rolls are (a, b, c),
with a, b, and c all being 4 or greater. Thus we have 33 = 27 ways of obtaining these.
In total, then, we have 27 + 81 = 108 ways to get at least two values of 4 or greater,
and our probability is P = 108
216
= 12 , as before.

(b) We can simply enumerate the manners in which the result is possible. There
are 20 elements in the 216 element sample space that generate a 15 or greater, so
 20 5
the probability is P = 216 = 54 . To consider the probability of repeated rolls, it is
convenient to consider the complementary event: let E c be the event that the roll is
less than 15. Then we want to know for what n it happens that there is less than a
40% chance of getting no rolls of 15. For one roll this is P (E c ) = 4954
; each successive
roll has 49 ways to produce a roll
less than 15 out of 216 total possible rolls. So after
n
n rolls the probability is P = 49
54
. Setting this equal to 0.4, we find n 9.43. Thus
we need at least 10 rolls.

(c) This sum occurs for rolls of (1, 1, ) (for which there are 1 + 3 5 = 16 ways it may
occur), (1, 2, ) (3 + 4 3! = 27 ways), (1, 3, ) (3 + 3 3! = 21 ways) and (2, 2, )
(1 + 4 3 = 13 ways). Thus there are 77 ways for this to occur, out of 216 possible,
77
so the probability is P = 216 0.356. In the second case, we have 58 ways for the
58
outcome to occur, giving a probability of P = 216 0.269.
6. A chessboard is an 88 grid. A rook (the chess piece that looks like a castle) can move
to any square in the same row or column as its current location; if the rook moves to
a square occupied by another piece, it captures it. If four rooks are placed at random
on the chessboard, what is the probability that none of them can capture any of the
others in a single move?
Solution: There are 64 ways to place the first rook. For the second rook there are 63
places from which to choose (each space on the board may be occupied by only one
piece), and there is one row and one column which we cannot pick if the rook is not
to be captured (to see this, draw a grid and cross out one row and one column). Thus
there are 72 = 49 available places if the rook is not to be captured. Similarly, the third
rook has 62 spaces and 36 which do not admit a capture, and for the last rook the
numbers are 61 and 25. The probability we want is therefore P = 64493625
64636261
0.185.
7. Suppose that we have a friend who is staying at a hotel which has n rooms. Inexplicably,
the hotel staff is allowing us to go through the hotel knocking on doors at random to
try and find our friend, and has given us a list of all of the rooms in the hotel.
(a) If we knock on doors at random, crossing off every room we try that isnt the
right one, what is the probability that we find our friend on the kth try?
(b) Suppose instead we promptly drop the list in the pool. (Oops.) We therefore pick
rooms at random, without regard for whether we have tried a room before. Now
what is the probability that we find our friend on the kth try?
(c) Can we be sure we will find our friend if we use the list? What about if we dont
use the list? Discuss. You may wish to consider what happens as k .
Solution:
(a) With Ek being the event that we find our friend on the kth try, we see that Ek is
the intersection of the events E1C ,. . . ,Ek1
C
(that is, that we didnt find our friend on
the first k 1 tries), and the event that the kth door is correct. This gives
     
n1 n2 nk 1 1
P (Ek ) = = .
n n1 nk+1 nk n
 1
(The probability that springs first to mind, nk , is the last probability here, which
is just the probability that someone given the reduced list of rooms would find your
friend on the first try.)
n1
(b) Now there is always a P (EjC ) = n
chance of not picking correctly on the jth try,
so our probability is just
k1  
(n 1)k1

n1 1
P (Ek ) = = .
n n nk

(c) If we use the list, we definitely find our friend, since the most tries it could possibly
take is n. Now suppose we dont use the list. Note that as k the probability we
found in (b) goes to 0. That is, for extremely large k, its unlikely to take us k tries
to find our friend; smaller values of k are more likely. This suggests we will find our
friend even in this case, though we dont have any upper bound on how many times
we open doors.

To make this argument rigorous, we need ideas beyond the scope of this course. But its
interesting to think about: there are outcomes in which we keep picking incorrect doors,
again and again and again and.... but those outcomes turn out to have probability zero,
even though they are not impossible! When we have an infinite sample space, strange
things can happen.