Last shiny penny arriving after the fourth draw
Question
A box contains shiny and dull pennies, drawn one at a time without replacement. Find the probability that the third shiny penny is not obtained within the first draws.
Short answer
. All placements of the shiny pennies in the draw order are equally likely. The third shiny one is within four draws only if all three shiny pennies lie in positions –, which happens in placements, leaving .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Counting and Combinatorics
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
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