What is the expected time between bites in a jungle full of bees?

janela
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
You are in a jungle, at each second a bee lands on your arm with a probability of 0.5. Given that a bee lands on you, it will bite your arm with a probability of 0.2 and not do anything with a probability of 0.8, independently of all other mosquitoes. What is the expected time between successive bites?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
1) What is the probability that you will get bitten in a single second.

2) What distribution deals with the number of trials before a success?

3) Show some working if you want help
 
1) What is the probability that you will get bitten in a single second.

The probability of getting bitten (event B), given the bee lands on you (event A),
is given as P(B|A)=0.2
and P(A) is given as =0.5
is it correct to say P(A|B) = P (A and B) / P(A) and solve for P(B) ,
I am not sure how to solve for P(B) though, Bayes rule? 2) What distribution deals with the number of trials before a success?
Is this asking whether it is a binomial random variable
where k is the # of bites, n is the number of seconds (as each second is a new trial)
and Px(k) = (n C k) p^k * (1-p)^(n-k)

should the correct random variable equation should be
=(nCk) * P(B)^k (1-P(B))^(n-k)

I am not sure if it makes sense to make the number of bites equal to the number of seconds to find the E[X] time between successive bites.
(both equal to 2?)
 
Last edited:
You are on the correct path with the conditional prob. What you are looking for is q = P(A and B), which is the binomial probability of being bitten.
 
Namaste & G'day Postulate: A strongly-knit team wins on average over a less knit one Fundamentals: - Two teams face off with 4 players each - A polo team consists of players that each have assigned to them a measure of their ability (called a "Handicap" - 10 is highest, -2 lowest) I attempted to measure close-knitness of a team in terms of standard deviation (SD) of handicaps of the players. Failure: It turns out that, more often than, a team with a higher SD wins. In my language, that...
Hi all, I've been a roulette player for more than 10 years (although I took time off here and there) and it's only now that I'm trying to understand the physics of the game. Basically my strategy in roulette is to divide the wheel roughly into two halves (let's call them A and B). My theory is that in roulette there will invariably be variance. In other words, if A comes up 5 times in a row, B will be due to come up soon. However I have been proven wrong many times, and I have seen some...
Back
Top