Assignment 1 - Probability and Statistics

Assignment 1: Probability and Statistics
Submission date: 6th September
Please attempt as many questions below as you can. The marking scheme
will be decided upon later based on your responses. Attend a discussion session
on Friday, email me or Rithik, or post a note on the Google classroom for
clarifications. The assignment is long but very complete for exam preparation.
Questions
1) Write down the sample spaces for the following experiments. Also write down
the size of the sample space in each case. Provide justification for your answer,
either by using combinatorial principles taught in class or listing the elements
of the sample space explicitly. (Note : an n-sided dice, for n ≥ 1, has faces with
the numbers 1, 2, . . . , n written on it). If need be, use any set-theoretic notation
taught in class that makes it easier to write down the sample space.
i) The first set involves simple combinatorial principles.
a Toss an eight-sided die. What is the top face?
b Two classes are happening at the same time. Three students are asked to
sit in exactly one of the classes each. Which classes do they sit in?
c A person can choose to wear a blue, black or green shirt, or a red or orange
T-shirt.
d Five cars come into a + junction from the top side of the +. The cars
are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Each will turn left, right or go straight. You are
standing in the middle of the junction and will see where each car goes
from the junction.
e A family has three children, each of which is known to be a boy or girl.
f Choose a two digit number which does not leave a remainder of 3 when
divided by 4.
ii) The second set involves conditional choices.
a Toss a coin. If heads, toss another coin. If tails, roll a six-sided die.
1
b There is a group of 3 boys and 2 girls. A coin is tossed and a boy is
selected if the result is heads and a girl is selected if it is tails.
c A family has two children, each of which is known to be a boy or girl, and
at least one is known to be a girl.
d Toss a coin and roll a six sided dice. If the coin is heads and the number
on the dice is even, then roll another six-sided dice. In every other case,
toss another coin.
e Toss seven coins in a row, and stop when you see a head. Otherwise,
continue till all seven coins are tossed.
f Three six-sided dice are thrown, the sum of whose top faces comes to be
known as 7, but whose top faces individually are not known. What could
the top faces be?
iii) The next set can be solved with everything you know, but you need to
think a little harder and differently for each question.
a A box contains 1 red and 3 blue balls. You take a ball out, observe its
color, then take another ball out and observe its color.
b The same as in (i){d}, except the cars all look the same, so you only see
how many cars go in each direction.
c 6 people are on a bus driven by you. There are 4 bus stops left for you to
drive. Some people get down at each bus stop, but no one gets on. At the
last bus stop, everyone still in the bus gets down. All you notice, as the
driver, is how many people get down at each stop.
d A six-sided dice is rolled as many times as necessary till the sum of numbers
on the faces either equals to, or is greater than 8. Record all the top faces
we saw along the way.
e You’re playing snakes and ladders. The snakes are of length −2 (go two
steps back), and ladders are of length 4. The snakes are located at all
multiples of 3, and the ladders are located at all numbers which are two
more than a multiple of 3 (2, 5, 8, . . .). You play with a six-sided dice on
this board five times, and record where you land in each turn.
iv) Here come the infinite experiments. Try and write each one down prop-
erly.
1. Roll a six sided dice till you get a four.

2. Toss a coin till you get three consecutive heads.
3. Toss a coin till you see three heads, not necessarily in a row.
2
4. (Tricky) A and B play a game, in which a six-sided dice is rolled. First A
rolls, and if A gets a 3 then she wins. Otherwise, B rolls. If B gets a 5
then he wins. Otherwise, A goes again, and wins if she gets a 3. If not,
then B rolls the dice... this goes on till either A gets a 3 or B gets a 5.
What does the sequence of rolls look like?
2) Feel free to use the principle of indifference without mention, but assign,
in a reasonable manner, a sample space and a probability assignment (i.e. a
probability space) in the following experiments. Use notational tricks mentioned
in class to simplify the amount you write (I do not want to read something the
size of a PhD. thesis!). All examples below are suitably taken or modified from
(1).
i) Easy like ABC : set theoretic principles, apply Principle of Indifference
directly.
a Toss an seven-sided die.
b A person can choose to wear a blue, black or green shirt, or a red or orange
T-shirt.
c A family has three children, each of which is known to be a boy or girl.
d Choose a two digit number which does not leave a remainder of 3 when
divided by 4.
ii) Conditional thinking, apply Principle of Indifference cautiously.
a Toss a coin. If heads, toss another coin. If tails, roll a six-sided die.
b There is a group of 3 boys and 2 girls. A coin is tossed and a boy is
selected if the result is heads and a girl is selected if it is tails.
c Toss a coin and roll a six sided dice. If the coin is heads and the number
on the dice is even, then roll another six-sided dice. In every other case,
toss another coin.
iii) Think harder here.
1. You have a box with 3 yellow balls, 2 blue balls and 1 red ball. You take
out a ball, look at its color, and then take another ball out and look at its
color.
2. A centipede is currently climbing a 6 meter long pole, and has already

climbed 3 meters. In a day, either the centipede climbs one meter up if
there’s no rain, or it slips down by one meter if there is rain. It rains half
the time. If the centipede reaches the top, it stays at the top, and if it
reaches the bottom, then it stays at the bottom forever. You track where
the centipede is for five consecutive days.
3
3. Sarvesh is climbing up a set of 5 stairs. He may unpredictably only take
one step up on each stair, or he may take two steps up. However, he takes
a step of length 1 twice as often as he takes a step of length 2. From
bottom to top, can we write down which sequence of steps he took, along
with the probability of that step sequence being the outcome?
3) Now for some set theoretic questions. Everywhere here, A, B, C, A1 , A2 , . . .

are sets whose cardinality is finite.
a) Prove that B ∩ (A1 ∪ A2 ) = (B ∩ A1 ) ∪ (B ∩ A2 ). Then, prove that
B ∪ (A1 ∩ A2 ) = (B ∪ A1 ) ∩ (B ∪ A2 ). What’s the relation between the two
equalities I asked you to prove here?
b) Extend the above to : B ∩ (∪∞ ∞
i=1 Ai ) = ∩i=1 (B ∪ Ai ). Do you think you
∞
can simplify B ∪ (∩i=1 Ai ) in a similar way?
c) We will prove the following identity :
|A1 ∪A2 ∪A3 | = |A1 |+|A2 |+|A3 |−|A1 ∩A2 |−|A2 ∩A3 |−|A1 ∩A3 |+|A1 ∩A2 ∩A3 |
in two different ways. First, we will prove it using the identity
|B ∩ C| = |B| + |C| − |B ∩ C|
which we proved in class. Set B = (A1 ∪ A2 ), C = A3 and do the relevant

algebra to get the result. Secondly, use nothing but the cardinality principle
for disjoint sets (the cardinality of the union of disjoint sets is the sum of the
cardinality of the sets) and some algebra to get the result.
d) Prove that |A1 ∪ A2 | ≤ |A1 | + |A2 |. Also prove that |A1 ∪ A2 ∪ A3 | ≥
|A1 | + |A2 | + |A3 | − |A1 ∩ A2 | − |A1 ∩ A3 | − |A2 ∩ A3 |.
e) For any two sets A and B, the symmetric difference of A and B is defined
by A∆B = (A\B)∪(B\A). What is the relation between the sizes of A∪B, A∩B
and A∆B? Prove it.

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Assignment 1: Probability and Statistics

Submission date: 6th September

a Toss an eight-sided die. What is the top face?

ii) The second set involves conditional choices.

1. Roll a six sided dice till you get a four.

a Toss an seven-sided die.

ii) Conditional thinking, apply Principle of Indifference cautiously.

iii) Think harder here.

2. A centipede is currently climbing a 6 meter long pole, and has already

3) Now for some set theoretic questions. Everywhere here, A, B, C, A1 , A2 , . . .

in two different ways. First, we will prove it using the identity

which we proved in class. Set B = (A1 ∪ A2 ), C = A3 and do the relevant

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