Back to 3.2 Problems on Conditional Probability

3.2 Exercise 22

Avg difficulty 2.5

Polya's urn scheme for a contagious disease. An urn contains initially b black balls and r red balls (r+b=nr + b = n). A ball is drawn on an equally likely basis from among those in the urn, then replaced along with c additional balls of the same color. The process is repeated. There are n balls on the first choice, n+cn + c balls on the second choice, etc. Let Bk be the event of a black ball on the kth draw and Rk be the event of a red ball on the kth draw. Determine

  1. P(B2|R1)P \left(\right. B_{2} \left|\right. R_{1} \left.\right)
  2. P(B1B2)P \left(B_{1} B_{2}\right)
  3. P(R2)P \left(R_{2}\right)
  4. P(B1|R2)P \left(\right. B_{1} \left|\right. R_{2} \left.\right).

Pfeiffer, Applied Probability, 3.2 Problems on Conditional Probability, exercise 22

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Adapted from Applied Probability © 2009 Paul E. Pfeiffer. Licensed under CC BY 3.0. Source: Applied Probability. Imported at revision d7a0420.