Urn where black balls get swapped for red
Question
An urn starts with red and black balls (). Repeatedly, a ball is drawn at random: a red ball is put back, while a black ball is removed and a red ball is put in its place, so the total stays . Let be the probability that draw number is red. Compute to two decimal places.
Short answer
About . Each draw removes a black ball with probability (blacks)/(total), so the expected number of black balls shrinks by the factor per draw. Hence .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
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