Black gets more priority

You have 50 white balls, 50 black balls and 2 bags. You want to arrange the balls into these bags in such a way as to maximize the probability that picking a bag at random and then picking a ball at random results in a black ball.

What is the maximum probability?

74/99 161/198 1/2 3/4

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2 solutions

Just put one black ball on its own in one bag and then the remaining 99 balls in the second bag. Then if the first bag is chosen, (with probability 1/2), the probability of choosing a black ball is 1. If the second bag is chosen, (with probability 1/2), then the probability of choosing a black ball is 49/99. This gives us an overall probability of

(1/2) * 1 + (1/2) * (49/99) = 74 / 99 \boxed{74/99} .

@Akshay Ginodia I made it clear that the bag was picked at random. Previously, a possible interpretation was that we could pick the bag we wanted, which would lead to an answer of 1.

Calvin Lin Staff - 6 years, 9 months ago
Nguyen Thanh Long
Jun 26, 2014

Denote x is the number of black balls on bag 1, y is the total number of balls in bag2. It is maximum of the expression: M A X ( 1 2 × [ x y + 50 x 100 y ] = 74 99 ) MAX(\frac{1}{2} \times [\frac{x}{y} + \frac{50-x}{100-y}]=\boxed{\frac{74}{99}})

How do you know that the maximum of the expression is 74 99 \frac{74}{99} ?

mathh mathh - 6 years, 11 months ago

anyway where is that formula come from?

Hafizh Ahsan Permana - 6 years, 11 months ago

well it is closed to 3/4...../

Hafizh Ahsan Permana - 6 years, 11 months ago

I think the formula should be Max(0.5(x/100-y + (50-x)/y )) .... On which condition did you maximise the equation??

Sandeep Sunnapu - 6 years, 11 months ago

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This expression is the same, and it gets the same result.

aaaaaa bbbbbb - 6 years, 11 months ago

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But ... On which condition did he maximise the expression?? It should not be x+y = 50

Sandeep Sunnapu - 6 years, 11 months ago

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@Sandeep Sunnapu Condition is: x y , x 50 x \le y, x\le 50

aaaaaa bbbbbb - 6 years, 11 months ago

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