Pan holding the 206 gram weight tipping down
Question
Six weights of and grams are split at random into two groups of three, one group on each pan of a balance. What is the probability that the pan carrying the -gram weight is the heavier one?
Short answer
. Subtract from each weight; the masses become to with total , and the pan with is heavier when its two partners sum to at least . Of the equally likely partner pairs, only and fail.
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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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