Lambdia

Conditional probability

8 articles

A 40% Shot Beats a 70% Shot That Only Buys a Coin Flip

Going in and winning are different events: the short shot clears two hurdles and wins 0.35 of the time against the long shot's 0.40. The article prices how wrong the reflex is in two currencies, a break-even overtime rate of 4/7 and a break-even make rate of 80 percent at a coin-flip overtime. It also names the objective under which the reflex is right, since the short shot scores 1.40 expected points against 1.20 and still wins fewer games.

0

Two Kings Off the Top: One in 221

Four over fifty-two squared is exactly right for the question where the first card goes back, which is what makes it hard to catch. Removing a king shrinks the numerator proportionally more than the denominator, and the counting route through 1326 two-card hands confirms one in 221 without mentioning order at all.

0

Reroll the Ones and the Die Is Worth Four

Three and a half is the exact average of a plain die, which is why it survives being double-checked. The rule does not reweight six outcomes, it deletes one, leaving a uniform payoff on five faces and an answer of four. The procedure costs 1.2 rolls on average, and the version where the reroll is your choice is a different game worth 4.25.

0

Two Children, One Girl, and Why the Answer Is 1/3 Until She Opens the Door

Told that one of two children is a girl, the chance both are girls is 1/3. Watch a girl open the door instead and it is 1/2, from the same four families and the same prior. One likelihood separates them: a mixed family always satisfies the statement, but sends the girl to the door only half the time. Push the identifying detail to a girl born on a Tuesday and the answer slides to 13/27.

0

A Thousand Coins, Ten Heads in a Row, and 1024/2023

Draw one coin from a thousand, flip ten heads, and the chance it is the two-headed one is 0.5062. Both reflex answers miss, in opposite directions: ninety-nine percent ignores the bag, one in a thousand ignores the flips. Counting patterns gets the exact figure with no Bayes notation at all, and the reason it lands on a coin flip is that 2^10 happens to sit next to the size of the bag.

0