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Question

There are three cards in a box. Both sides of one card are black, both sides of one card are red, and the third card has one black side and one red side. We pick a card at random and observe only one side.
What is the probability that the opposite side is the same colour as the one side we observed ?

The correct answer is
2/3

Probability of Same Color Opposite Side Card Problem

Understanding the Card Scenarios

We have three distinct cards:

  • Card 1: Both sides are Black (BB).
  • Card 2: Both sides are Red (RR).
  • Card 3: One side is Black and one side is Red (BR).

Analyzing the Observation Process

A card is chosen randomly, and one side is observed. We need to find the probability that the side facing down (the opposite side) is the same color as the side we observed.

Let's consider all possible equally likely outcomes based on the side we observe. There are 6 sides in total across the three cards, and any of these could be the one we observe.

Identifying Favorable Outcomes

We list each possible observation and check if the opposite side matches the observed color:

  • Scenario 1: Observe a Black side from the BB card. There are 2 Black sides on this card. The opposite side is also Black. (Observed: Black, Opposite: Black) -> Match.
  • Scenario 2: Observe a Red side from the RR card. There are 2 Red sides on this card. The opposite side is also Red. (Observed: Red, Opposite: Red) -> Match.
  • Scenario 3: Observe a Black side from the BR card. There is 1 Black side on this card. The opposite side is Red. (Observed: Black, Opposite: Red) -> No Match.
  • Scenario 4: Observe a Red side from the BR card. There is 1 Red side on this card. The opposite side is Black. (Observed: Red, Opposite: Black) -> No Match.

To calculate the probability, we consider each of the 6 sides as a potential observation.

  • The BB card offers 2 possible Black observations. Both result in the opposite side being Black (same color).
  • The RR card offers 2 possible Red observations. Both result in the opposite side being Red (same color).
  • The BR card offers 1 Black observation (opposite is Red) and 1 Red observation (opposite is Black). Neither results in the same color.

Calculating the Probability

Total number of equally likely observable sides = 2 (from BB) + 2 (from RR) + 2 (from BR) = 6.

Number of favorable outcomes (where the opposite side is the same color as the observed side):

  • From the BB card: 2 outcomes.
  • From the RR card: 2 outcomes.
  • From the BR card: 0 outcomes.

Total favorable outcomes = 2 + 2 = 4.

The probability is calculated as:

$ P(\text{Opposite side is same color}) = \frac{\text{Number of favorable outcomes}}{\text{Total number of outcomes}} $

$ P(\text{Opposite side is same color}) = \frac{4}{6} $

Simplifying the fraction:

$ P(\text{Opposite side is same color}) = \frac{2}{3} $

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Important Questions from Basics of Probability

  1. Suppose a 5-bit message is transmitted from a source to a destination through a noisy channel. The probability that a bit of the message gets flipped during transmission is 0.01. Flipping of each bit is independent of one another. The probability that the message is delivered error-free to the destination is ______ . (rounded off to three decimal places)

  2. A quadratic polynomial $(x - \alpha)(x - \beta)$ over complex numbers is said to be square invariant if $(x - \alpha)(x - \beta) = (x - \alpha^2)(x - \beta^2)$. Suppose from the set of all square invariant quadratic polynomials we choose one at random.

    The probability that the roots of the chosen polynomial are equal is ____________ (rounded off to one decimal place)
  3. If, out of 50 fish of a pond, 12 had no ectoparasite and remaining had varying numbers of parasites on them, then how many of fish had at least one parasite ?
  4. For a distribution with mean, median, mode and standard deviation 25, 24, 26 and 5 respectively, Karl Pearson's coefficient of skewness equals to:

  5. Suppose two distributions have the same mean, same standard deviation and are equally skewed, but the first distribution is more peaked than the
    other. This feature of the frequency distributions in which they are different are called:

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