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Newborn's sex after a boy is picked from the nursery

Question

A nursery contains 33 boys and some unknown number of girls. A newborn, equally likely to be a boy or a girl, is added. A nurse then picks a child at random from the nursery and it is a boy. What is the probability that the newborn is a boy?

Short answer

4/74/7. With gg girls, a boy is picked with probability 4g+4\tfrac{4}{g+4} if the newborn is a boy and 3g+4\tfrac{3}{g+4} if not. The common denominator and equal priors cancel in Bayes' rule, leaving 44+3=47\tfrac{4}{4+3}=\tfrac47 regardless of gg.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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