- #1
CAF123
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Homework Statement
Suppose we have 10 coins such that if the ith coin is flipped, heads will appear with probability i/10, i = 1,2...10. When one of the coins is randomly selected and flipped, what is the conditional probability that it was the coin?
Homework Equations
Bayes's Formula
The Attempt at a Solution
First of all, I can't make any sense out of how choosing a different coin will give a different probability of showing a head?
In solving the problem, I used Bayes's relation; [tex] P(\text{5th coin} | \text{heads}) = \frac{P(\text{heads | 5th coin})P(\text{5th coin})}{P(\text{heads| 5th coin})P(\text{5th coin}) + P(\text{heads | not 5th coin})P(\text{not 5th coin})} [/tex]
where [tex] P(\text{heads |5th coin}) = \frac{5}{10}, P(\text{5th coin}) = \frac{1}{10}, P(\text{heads | not 5th coin}) = \frac{P(\text{heads and not 5th coin})}{P(\text{not 5th coin})} = \frac{\frac{9}{10}\frac{1}{2}}{\frac{9}{10}} = \frac{1}{2}, P(\text{not 5th coin}) = 1-\frac{1}{10}. [/tex] Putting this together gives the wrong answer. Any ideas?