3
$\begingroup$

I randomly chose between 2 coins. One of the coins has a 0.8 chance of heads and a 0.2 chance of tails. The other is a fair coin that has a 0.5 chance of either heads or tails.

I flip this coin twice and get 2 heads. What's the probability that my next flip is heads?

I tried using Bayes' Theorem:

$ P(H|HH) = \frac{P(HH|H)P(H)}{P(HH)} $

But then $P(HH|H)$ is not easy to solve...

2 Answers 2

6

Let $HH$ be the event that we get $2$ heads in a row. Let $H_3$ be the event the third toss is a head. We want $\Pr(H_3|HH)$. Maybe we start from something a little simpler than the Bayes' Theorem that you used, essentially the definition of conditional probability: $\Pr(H_3|HH)=\frac{\Pr(H_3 \cap HH)}{\Pr(HH)}.$

We calculate the two probabilities on the right. For $\Pr(HH)$, note that two heads in a row happens with probability $(4/5)^2$ if we use the funny coin, and with probability $(1/2)^2$ if the coin is the ordinary coin. It follows that $\Pr(HH)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{4}{5}\right)^2+\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)^2.$

A similar calculation gives us the probability of $HH$, followed by $H_3$: $\Pr(HH\cap H_3)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{4}{5}\right)^3+\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)^3.$ Divide.

  • 1
    The answer you had proposed would be correct if we picked a coin, tossed it, **replaced** it, picked and tossed again. But in the problem we pick a coin and flip **this** coin twice.2015-01-10
4

If you had coin $A$ (the funny one), you would have a 0.64 chance of two heads; if you had coin $B$ (the fair one), you would have a 0.25 chance of two heads. Assuming you selected between $A$ and $B$ equiprobably, your probability of having coin $A$ is ${0.64\over 0.25+0.64} = {64\over 89}$

and your probability of having coin $B$ is $1-{64\over 89} = {25\over 89}$.

Your chance of getting a head on the next flip is therefore ${64\over 89}\cdot \frac45 + {25\over 89}\cdot \frac12={637\over 890}\approx 71.6\%.$