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Tutorial 1 - Answers

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Tutorial 1 - Answers

Uploaded by

michmapa0509
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© © All Rights Reserved
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CH2010 Engineering Statistics AY2024 - 2025

Tutorial 1. Probability

1. We roll two fair dice simultaneously, what is the probability that we get a sum of 7?
(Easy)
Solution:
Given the two events are independents, by multiplication rule, the size of the sample
space is 6 × 6. Possible combinations that yield a total of 7 are: 1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2
and 6+1. Therefore the probability is 6/36 = 1/6.
2. An urn contains a white balls and b black balls (a ≥ 2, b ≥ 3). We take five balls out of the
urn at random. What is the probability that two balls are white and three balls are black?
(Easy)
Solution
The order in which the balls are picked doesn’t matter, so we use the combination
formula.
Number of ways to pick 5 balls out of an urn of a + b:

Number of ways to pick 2 out of a white balls:

Number of ways to pick 3 out of b black balls:

Therefore the probability is:

You can also report the simplified answer after expanding all the factorials.
3. How many distinct permutations can be made from the letters of the word INFINITY?
(Medium)
Solution
INFINITY has 8 words. So the number of ways to arrange the letters, identical letters are
distinct, is 8! = 40320

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CH2010 Engineering Statistics AY2024 - 2025

There are three Is, so there are 3! = 6 ways to arrange the Is.
There are 2 Ns, so 2 ways to arrange the Ns.
So the total number of ways to rearrange the letters is 40320/6/2 = 3360.

4. A communication system consists of n components. It functions only when at least half of


its components are functioning. All the components function independently with the same
reliability, p (i.e. the probability for each component to fail is 1 – p). Under what values
of p is a 3-component system more likely to fail than a 5-component system? (Medium)
Solution
A 3-component fails if 2 or 3 components fail.
P(3 failures) = (1 – p)3: there is only one way to have 3 failures out of 3, each with
probability of (1 – p)3.
P(2 failures) =3C1 (1 – p)2p = 3(1 – p)2p :three are 3 ways to have 2 failures out of 3
components, each with probability (1 – p)2p
Therefore the total failure rate is: (1 – p)3 + 3(1 – p)2p = (1 – p)2(1 + 2p)
A 5-component system fails if 3, 4, or 5 components fail.
P(3 failures) = 5C3 (1 – p)3p2 = 10(1 – p)3p2
P(4 failures) = 5C4(1 – p)4p = 5(1 – p)4p
P(5 failures) = (1– p)5
Therefore the total failure rate is: 10(1 – p)3p2 + 5(1 – p)4p + (1– p)5 = (1 – p)3(1 + 3p +
6p2)
If a 3-component system is more likely to fail than a 5 component system, then
(1 – p)2(1 + 2p) > (1 – p)3(1 + 3p + 6p2)
(1 + 2p) > (1 – p)(1 + 3p + 6p2)
1 + 2p > 1 + 3p + 6p2 – p – 3p2 – 6p3
3p2 – 6p3 < 0
2p – 1 >0
p > 0.5.
5. Following question 3, in general, for what value of p is a (2k +1) component system more
reliable than a (2k – 1) component system? k is any positive integer. (Difficult)
Solution
To compare the two systems, we must find some similarities. We should recognise that
the (2k + 1) component system is 2 components more than the (2k – 1) component
system.

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CH2010 Engineering Statistics AY2024 - 2025

Therefore, for the (2k + 1) component system, we look at the probability of failure of the
first (2k – 1), plus the probability of failure of the last 2 components.
For the (2k + 1) component system to fail, at least (k + 1) must fail. Therefore, we can
decompose the failure of the (2k + 1) component system into 3 scenarios:
a) k – 1 fail out of the first 2k – 1 components, and the last two components both fails.
b) k fail out of the first 2k – 1 components, plus at least one out of the last two
components fails.
c) More than k fail out of the first 2k – 1 components, the last two components don’t
matter.
Let X be the number of failures out of the first 2k – 1 components.
The probability for the (2k + 1) component system to fail is therefore:
P(a) + P(b) + P(c) = P(X = k – 1) × (1 – p)2 + P(X = k) × [2(1 – p)p + (1 – p)2] + P(X ≥ k
+ 1)
The probability that a 2k – 1 fail is the probability of X = k plus the probability X ≥ k + 1.
P(X ≥ k) = P(X = k) + P(X ≥ k + 1).
Therefore, for the (2k +1) component system to be more reliable than a (2k – 1)
component system, it must satisfy that:
P(X = k – 1) × (1 – p)2 + P(X = k) × (1 – p2) + P(X ≥ k + 1) < P(X = k) + P(X ≥ k + 1)
P(X = k – 1) × (1 – p)2 + P(X = k) × (1 – p2) < P(X = k)

(2kk−1−1) ( 1− p ) p ( 1− p) −(2 k−1


k−1 k 2
k )
k
( 1− p ) p k−1 2
p <0

Note that ( ) =(
k )
2 k −1 2 k −1
by definition
k −1
( 1− p )k−1 pk ( 1− p )2−( 1−p )k p k−1 p2 <0
( 1− p )k+1 p k −( 1− p )k pk +1< 0
( 1− p )− p<0
1−2 p<0
p > 0.5.
Same as the last question. This implies that if a single component is more likely to work
than fail (p > 0.5), than having more components makes the system more likely to work
than fail. If a single component is more likely to fail than work (p < 0.5), than having
more components makes the system more likely to fail than work.

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