Be very careful

You are rolling a fair 6-sided dice 3 times. What is the probability that the first roll will be greater than each of the other two individually?

Image Credit: Flickr Jo Christian Oterhals .
91 216 \frac{91}{216} 1 4 \frac{1}{4} 1 3 \frac{1}{3} 55 216 \frac{55}{216} None of these 49 144 \frac{49}{144} 11 36 \frac{11}{36} 25 144 \frac{25}{144}

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5 solutions

Sean Sullivan
Jul 29, 2015

If you roll x x the first time there are x 1 x-1 valid options on each of the next two rolls and for both of the next two rolls to be valid there are ( x 1 ) 2 (x-1)^2 combinations. There are 6 3 = 216 6^3=216 total options hence the answer is

1 216 n = 1 6 ( n 1 ) 2 = 1 216 n = 0 5 n 2 = 1 216 5 ( 5 + 1 ) ( 2 ( 5 ) + 1 ) 6 = 55 216 \frac{1}{216}\sum\limits_{n=1}^{6} (n-1)^2=\frac{1}{216}\sum\limits_{n=0}^{5} n^2 = \frac{1}{216}\frac{5(5+1)(2(5)+1)}{6}=\boxed{\frac{55}{216}}

Can someone explain what's wrong with my solution? I found probability of getting number x on first roll and then probability of getting numbers less than x and I took the sum of all those cases. Ex probability of 3 is 1/6 probability of numbers less than 3 is 1/36. I took the sum and got 20/216 then multiplied by 3 because u have three dice to get 60/216?

Ashish Sacheti - 5 years, 10 months ago

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I meant that the first player rolls a higher number than each of the other two individually. I've added clarification.

Alex Li - 5 years, 10 months ago

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Oh okay thanks!

Ashish Sacheti - 5 years, 10 months ago
Stuti Malik
Jul 30, 2015

Probability= number of favourable outcomes ÷ total number of outcomes.

Total number of outcomes= 6×6×6= 216

Favourable outcomes include-

(2,1,1)

(3,1,1) (3,2,2) (3,1,2) (3,2,1)

(4,1,1) (4,2,2) (4,3,3) + 2(3C2)

(5,1,1) (5,2,2) (5,3,3) (5,4,4) + 2(4C2)

(6,1,1) (6,2,2) (6,3,3) (6,4,4) (6,5,5) + 2(5C2)

Now counting the number of favourable outcomes gives 17 + 2(3C2 + 4C2 + 5C2)

= 17 + 2(3+6+10) = 17+ 38 =55

Therefore the probability of this event is 55/216

Hadia Qadir
Aug 12, 2015

55/216....as if 1st throw can be minimum 2 and second and third dice roll would be compulsory 1 (1/6 1/6 1/6)...similary if 1 st throw is 3 then second and third dice can be 1 or 2 (1/6 2/6 2/6)...similarly for if first throw is 4 then(1/6 3/6 3/6) as 2nd and 3 rd throw can take calue 1,2,3...so on till 1 st throw be 6... 1/6 1/6 1/6+1/6 2/6 2/6+1/6 3/6 3/6+1/6 4/6 4/6+1/6 5/6 5/6=55/216.

Ferriel Melarpis
Aug 8, 2015

I've encountered this kind of problem before and I just use the property of the sequence it shows : 1 2 , 2 2 , . . . 5 2 1^{2}, 2^{2}, ... 5^{2} . Thus, it has a pattern of sum of squares which is n × ( n + 1 ) × ( 2 n + 1 ) / 6 n \times (n+1) \times (2n+1) / 6 and divide it with the total space = 216 final answer would be 55/216

Let's take a look at all possible first rolls and consequent probability of getting a higher number.

If first roll is a 1,

Probability of getting a higher number in any one of the next rolls (POH) = 5/6.

Probability of getting a higher number in the next two rolls combined (POH^2) = 5/6 * 5/6 = 25/36.

If first roll is a 2,

POH = 4/6

POH^2 = 16/36.

For 3,4,5,6 we get 9/36, 2/36/, 1/36 and 0/36 as POH^2 respectively.

Adding all probabilities and taking average we get.

25 + 16 + 9 + 4 + 1 + 0 36 6 = 55 216 \frac { 25+16+9+4+1+0 }{ 36*6 } = \frac { 55 }{ 216 }

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