Second blue draw from a randomly chosen bowl
Question
There are three bowls: one holds two blue balls, one holds two red balls, and one holds one ball of each colour. You choose a bowl uniformly at random and draw a ball, which turns out to be blue. You put it back and draw again from that same bowl. What is the probability that the second ball is also blue?
Short answer
. The first draw is blue with probability , and two blues (with replacement) occur with probability . Dividing gives ; the blue draw tilts you towards the all-blue bowl.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
- Continuous Random Variables and Probability Density Functions
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