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Tutorial Sheet4 Special DRV

The document discusses probability concepts related to discrete random variables and provides examples involving coin tosses, machine failures, elections, birthdays, and other scenarios. It includes questions about the probability of certain outcomes and uses the Poisson distribution to model situations like roadkill and lightning strikes.

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47 views3 pages

Tutorial Sheet4 Special DRV

The document discusses probability concepts related to discrete random variables and provides examples involving coin tosses, machine failures, elections, birthdays, and other scenarios. It includes questions about the probability of certain outcomes and uses the Poisson distribution to model situations like roadkill and lightning strikes.

Uploaded by

bekesy7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SPECIAL DISCRETE RANDOM VARIABLES

TUTORIAL SHEET V

PROBABILITY THEORY FOR TELECOMMUNICATION

COURSE INSTRUTOR: TAR JOEL

1. The recovery ward in a maternity hospital has six beds. What is the
probability that the mothers there have between them four girls and
two boys? (You may assume that there are no twins and that a baby is
equally likely to be a girl or a boy.)
2. A typist has a probability of 0.99 of typing a letter correctly. He makes
his mistakes at random. He types a sentence containing 200 letters.
What is the probability that he makes exactly one mistake?
3. In a well-known game you have to decide which your opponent is
going to choose: ‘Paper’, ‘Stone’ or ‘Scissors’. If you guess entirely at
random, what is the probability that you are right exactly 5 times out
of 15?
4. There is a fault in a machine making microchips, with the result that
only 80% of those it produces work. A random sample of eight
microchips made by this machine is taken. What is the probability that
exactly six of them work?
5. An airport is situated in a place where poor visibility (less than 800 m)
can be expected 25% of the time. A pilot flies into the airport on ten
different occasions.
(i) What is the probability that he encounters poor visibility exactly
four times?
(ii) What other factors could influence the probability?
6. Three coins are tossed.
(i) What is the probability of all three showing heads?
(ii) What is the probability of two heads and one tail?
(iii) What is the probability of one head and two tails?
(iv) What is the probability of all three showing tails?

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(v) Show that the probabilities for the four possible outcomes add up
to 1.
7. A coin is tossed ten times.
(i) What is the probability of it coming down heads five times and tails
five times?
(ii) Which is more likely: exactly seven heads or more than seven
heads?
8. In an election 30% of people support the Progressive Party. A random
sample of eight voters is taken.
(i) What is the probability that it contains
(a) 0 (b) 1 (c) 2
(d) at least 3 supporters of the Progressive Party?
(ii) Which is the most likely number of Progressive Party supporters to
find in a sample of size eight?
9. There are 15 children in a class.
(i) What is the probability that
(a) 0 (b) 1 (c) 2
(d) at least 3 were born in January?
(ii) What assumption have you made in answering this question? How
valid is this assumption in your view?
10. 1 If X ¬ Po(1.75), use the Poisson formula to calculate
(i) P(X = 2) (ii) P(X >0).
11. If X ¬ Po(3.1), use the Poisson formula to calculate
(i) P(X = 3) (ii) P(X < 2) (iii) P(X ≥ 2).
12. The number of defects in a wire cable can be modelled by the Poisson
distribution with a uniform rate of 1.5 defects per kilometre. Find the
probability that
(i) a single kilometre of wire will have exactly 3 defects
(ii) a single kilometre of wire will have at least 5 defects.
13. Jasmit is considering buying a telephone answering machine. He has
one for five days’ free trial and finds that 22 messages are left on it.
Assuming that this is typical of the use it will get if he buys it, find:

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(i) the mean number of messages per day
(ii) the probability that on one particular day there will be exactly six
messages
(iii) the probability that there will be exactly six messages in two days.
14. 3 The number of wombats that are killed on a particular stretch of road
in Australia in any one day can be modelled by a Po(0.42) random
variable.
(i) Calculate the probability that exactly two wombats are killed on a
given day on this stretch of road.
(ii) Find the probability that exactly four wombats are killed over a 5-
day period on this stretch of road.
15. In a country the mean number of deaths per year from lightning strike
is 2.2.
(i) Find the probabilities of 0, 1, 2 and more than 2 deaths from
lightning strike in any particular year.
In a neighbouring country, it is found that one year in twenty nobody
dies from lightning strike.
(ii) Estimate the mean number of deaths per year in that country from
lightning strike.

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