The problem is the following: You have 10 balls:6 of them are black and 4 are white. 3 balls are removed from a box that have them,but their colors are not observed. What is the probability that the fourth ball removed is WHITE?all balls have the same probability to be removed. this last information made me get different answers...
A box with 10 balls,6 black and 4 white.3 are removed ,no observing their colors
2
$\begingroup$
probability
-
0Now they match. – 2012-05-27
1 Answers
1
The probability is $\dfrac{4}{10}$.
Maybe think of it this way. Label the balls from $1$ to $10$, say $1$ to $4$ for the whites, $5$ to $10$ for the blacks, and mix thoroughly. Now remove the balls, one at a time. Since all orders of labels are equally likely, the probability that the $k$-th ball removed is (say) the ball with label $1$ is $\frac{1}{10}$. The probability that the $k$-th ball removed is the ball with label $2$ is also $\frac{1}{10}$, and so on. So the probability that the $k$-th ball removed is white is $\frac{4}{10}$.
The point is that any of the balls is as likely to be in position $k$ of a permutation as any other.
-
0Just one more consideration:wouldn´t you have to considerate the fact that white balls could have been removed? – 2012-05-27