Which coin?

In front of you are two identical-looking coins. One of them is fair (it comes up Heads 50% of the time), while the other is unfair, in that it comes up Heads 75% of the time. You take one of the coins and flip it five times, yielding the following sequence: HTHTH. The probability that the coin you've been flipping is the unfair one can be written as m n \frac{m}{n} , where m and n are positive coprime integers. Find m + n m+n .


The answer is 86.

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5 solutions

Daniel Liu
Dec 20, 2013

The probability of the fair coin getting the sequence is 32 1024 \dfrac{32}{1024} . The probability of the unfair coin getting the sequence is 27 1024 \dfrac{27}{1024} . Therefore the probability that the coin picked is the unfair coin is 27 27 + 32 = 27 59 \dfrac{27}{27+32}=\dfrac{27}{59} and our desired answer is 27 + 59 = 86 27+59=\boxed{86} .

Let P(A) = Probabilty of fair coin being flipped = 1/2 P(B) = Probabilty of unfair coin being flipped = 1/2 P(S/A) = Probabilty of the sequence occuring when fair coin is flipped = 1/32 P(S/B) = Probabilty of the sequence occuring when unfair coin is flipped=27/1024 (Since P(S/A) = 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2= 1/32 & P(S/B) = 3/4 x 1/4 x 3/4 x 1/4 x 3/4= 27/1024) Applying BAYE'S THEOREM, P(B/S) = \frac{P(B).P(S/B)}{P(A).P(S/A) + P(B).P(S/B)} = \boxed{27/59} So, m/n = 27/59 Thus \boxed{m+n = 86}

Amlan Mishra - 7 years, 5 months ago

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This is a case of conditional probability : P(unfair coin l HTHTH) = P(unfair coin intersec. HTHTH) / P(HTHTH)

Vishnu Kulkarni - 7 years, 5 months ago
Rithvik Pasumarty
Dec 22, 2013

Probability With the Fair Coin: 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 = 1 32 \frac{1}{2}\cdot\frac{1}{2}\cdot\frac{1}{2}\cdot\frac{1}{2}\cdot\frac{1}{2}=\frac{1}{32}

Probability With the Unfair Coin: 3 4 1 4 3 4 1 4 3 4 = 27 1024 \frac{3}{4}\cdot\frac{1}{4}\cdot\frac{3}{4}\cdot\frac{1}{4}\cdot\frac{3}{4}=\frac{27}{1024}

Combined Probabilities: 1 32 + 27 1024 = 59 1024 \frac{1}{32}+\frac{27}{1024}=\frac{59}{1024}

Probability with Unfair Coins(Out of all the Possible Outcomes): 27 1024 59 1024 = 27 59 \frac{\frac{27}{1024}}{\frac{59}{1024}}=\frac{27}{59}

Therefore the answer is 27 + 59 = 86 27+59 = \boxed{86}

Simplest explanation. Good job :)

Rolando Francisco Jr. - 7 years, 3 months ago

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Anubhav Singh
Feb 14, 2014

Use Bayes' Theorem:

...or you can think of it like this. There is a certain probability that this will happen assuming you choose a die at random (i.e. either fair or unfair). This is gotten by taking the probability assuming it's a fair die and taking the probability assuming it's an unfair die and multiplying by the probability that it's fair and unfair, respectively (them adding those up):

p(outcome) = p(outcome|fair) * p(fair) + p(outcome|unfair) * p(unfair)

In this case the chances of being fair or unfair would be 50/50 = 0.50 % (you don't know know which one). The probability that it is unfair is simple the portion of the probability that comes from the unfair part...that is:

p(unfair | outcome) = p(outcome | unfari) * p(unfair) / p(outcome) <-- this is Bayes' Theorem

So let's find p(outcome)...that's easy:

Assuming fair coin:

Every roll has probability 1/2, so it's just: 1/2⁵ = 1/32

Unfair coin: Three heads and two tails: (3/4)³ * (1/4)² = 27/4⁵ --> add them up to get the probability of this outcome (assuming a random choice of fair or unfair):

1/32 * 1/2 + 27/32² * 1/2 = 1/2 *(32 + 27)/32² = 1/2 * 59/32² -->

Now take the proportion of that total which was the unfair coin:

27/32² *1/2 /(1/2 *59/32²) = 27/59 27+59=86

Yeswanth Kumar
Dec 21, 2013

lets say that fair coins probability of yielding H or T is 1/2 and that of unfair coin is 3/4 and 1/4 now for getting HTHTH with fair coin P(f)=1/2x1/2x1/2x1/2x1/2=1/32 with unfair coin is P(u)=3/4x1/4x3/4x1/4x3/4=27/(32x32) so probability of getting HTHTH using unfair coin is P(u)/(P(u)+P(f))=27/(27+32) so m=27 and n=32+27 and.............m+n=86

Lokesh Sharma
Dec 21, 2013

Suppose we did x trials with fair coin and another same x number of trials with unfair coin.

Using fair coin, the number of times we will get the "HTHTH" sequence is P1*x, where P1 is the probability of getting the given sequence with fair coin.

Similarly, using unfair coin, the number of time we get 'HTHTH" sequence is P2*x, where P2 is the probability of getting the given sequence with unfair coin.

Now, let's just consider the number of times we got 'HTHTH' sequence. Let's take this our sample space and find the probability that unfair coin was being used to get the 'HTHTH' sequence.

The probability will be = No of times we got "HTHTH" sequence using unfair coin/No of times we got 'HTHTH' sequence using both coins

= P2 x/(P1 x + P2*x) = P1/(P1 + P2)

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