What Is the Probability of Detecting Cheating or Sampling Specific Blood Groups?

Click For Summary

Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around two probability problems: one involving the selection of individuals with specific blood groups and the other concerning the detection of performance-enhancing drugs among vitamin tablets. The first problem requires a formula for the probability of selecting a sample with a specific distribution of blood types, while the second problem focuses on calculating the likelihood of detecting drugs in a random sample of tablets.

Discussion Character

  • Mixed

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants explore the probability of selecting two individuals from each blood group in a sample of six, discussing the arrangement and potential double-counting of selections.
  • In the second problem, participants consider different methods for calculating the probability of detecting drugs, including summing probabilities of finding one or two drugs and discussing the use of binomial coefficients.
  • Some participants question the correctness of their approaches and seek alternative methods for solving the problems.

Discussion Status

There is an ongoing exploration of the problems, with participants providing feedback on each other's attempts. Some guidance has been offered regarding the need to account for double-counting in the first problem, and suggestions for alternative methods have been raised, particularly regarding the use of binomial coefficients.

Contextual Notes

Participants note that both problems can be categorized under hypergeometric distributions, with specific parameters for each case. There is also mention of homework constraints that may influence the methods discussed.

Maybe_Memorie
Messages
346
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement



1. A group of people contains 10 with blood group O, 5 with blood group A and 5 with blood group B. Give a formula for the probability that a random sample of size 6 will contain two people from each group.

2. An athlete conceals 2 performance enhancing drugs in a bottle containing 8 vitamin tablets. If three tablets are selected at random for testing what is the probability cheating will be detected?

Homework Equations





The Attempt at a Solution



To get the six people having two from each group would it be
(10/20)(9/19)(5/18)(4/17)(5/16)(4/15) and there are 6! ways this can be arranged so my answer would be
P = 6!(10/20)(9/19)(5/18)(4/17)(5/16)(4/15)

Is this correct?


For part 2, there is 10 tablets in total. We take a sample of 3 tablets.
I'm sure there's a fancier way of doing this but all I can think of is this
P(drugs detected) = P(1 drug found) + P(2 drugs found)
= 3!(2/10)(8/9)(7/8) + 3!(2/10)(1/9)(8/8)
 
Physics news on Phys.org


Maybe_Memorie said:

Homework Statement



1. A group of people contains 10 with blood group O, 5 with blood group A and 5 with blood group B. Give a formula for the probability that a random sample of size 6 will contain two people from each group.

The Attempt at a Solution



To get the six people having two from each group would it be
(10/20)(9/19)(5/18)(4/17)(5/16)(4/15) and there are 6! ways this can be arranged so my answer would be
P = 6!(10/20)(9/19)(5/18)(4/17)(5/16)(4/15)

Is this correct?
Almost. You need to divide by (2!)3 because you're double-counting each pair. That is, you're counting X getting picked first and then Y separately from Y getting picked first and then X, for each pair.
 
vela said:
Almost. You need to divide by (2!)3 because you're double-counting each pair. That is, you're counting X getting picked first and then Y separately from Y getting picked first and then X, for each pair.

Ah yes I see! :smile:

Is my part 2 correct? Is there any other way of going about it?
 


Maybe_Memorie said:

Homework Statement



2. An athlete conceals 2 performance enhancing drugs in a bottle containing 8 vitamin tablets. If three tablets are selected at random for testing what is the probability cheating will be detected?

The Attempt at a Solution



For part 2, there is 10 tablets in total. We take a sample of 3 tablets.
I'm sure there's a fancier way of doing this but all I can think of is this
P(drugs detected) = P(1 drug found) + P(2 drugs found)
= 3!(2/10)(8/9)(7/8) + 3!(2/10)(1/9)(8/8)
Same mistake as before. You're double-counting the pairs.
 
Maybe_Memorie said:

Homework Statement



1. A group of people contains 10 with blood group O, 5 with blood group A and 5 with blood group B. Give a formula for the probability that a random sample of size 6 will contain two people from each group.

2. An athlete conceals 2 performance enhancing drugs in a bottle containing 8 vitamin tablets. If three tablets are selected at random for testing what is the probability cheating will be detected?

Homework Equations





The Attempt at a Solution



To get the six people having two from each group would it be
(10/20)(9/19)(5/18)(4/17)(5/16)(4/15) and there are 6! ways this can be arranged so my answer would be
P = 6!(10/20)(9/19)(5/18)(4/17)(5/16)(4/15)

Is this correct?


For part 2, there is 10 tablets in total. We take a sample of 3 tablets.
I'm sure there's a fancier way of doing this but all I can think of is this
P(drugs detected) = P(1 drug found) + P(2 drugs found)
= 3!(2/10)(8/9)(7/8) + 3!(2/10)(1/9)(8/8)

In your part 2: your answer adds up to 16/15 > 1!

In both cases you have a hypergeometric-type problem: in 1, it is a 3-category hypergeometric, with N1 = 10 of type 1, N2 = 5 of type 2 and N3 = 5 of type 3.

In case 2 you have a standard (2-category) hypergeometric, with N1 = 2 of type 1 and N2 = 8 of type 2. You can easily get P{no type 1 in sample of size 3}.

See. eg., http://stattrek.com/lesson2/hypergeometric.aspx or
http://www.stat.ufl.edu/~berg/sta5325/files/sta5325-12.pdf for the hypergeometric.

In part 1 you have a multi-class version of the hypergeometric, which is not usually done in easily-accessible web pages. Think of it like this: P{k1,k2,k3} = P{k1 type 1, k2+k3 type 2 or 3}*P{k2 type 2, k3 type 3|k2 + k3 type 2 or 3}. Each factor is a simple hypergeometric probability as found in the cited web pages.

RGV
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Maybe_Memorie said:
Is there any other way of going about it?
Do you know about binomial coefficients? Both problems can be solved easily using them.

In problem 2, you could also find the probability of not getting caught, i.e. the probability of choosing 3 vitamin tablets, and then subtract that from 1 to find the probability of getting caught.
 


vela said:
Do you know about binomial coefficients? Both problems can be solved easily using them.

In problem 2, you could also find the probability of not getting caught, i.e. the probability of choosing 3 vitamin tablets, and then subtract that from 1 to find the probability of getting caught.

Yes, I was trying originally to apply the binomial method but couldn't see how to...
 
Ray Vickson said:
In your part 2: your answer adds up to 16/15 > 1!

In both cases you have a hypergeometric-type problem: in 1, it is a 3-category hypergeometric, with N1 = 10 of type 1, N2 = 5 of type 2 and N3 = 5 of type 3.

In case 2 you have a standard (2-category) hypergeometric, with N1 = 2 of type 1 and N2 = 8 of type 2. You can easily get P{no type 1 in sample of size 3}.

See. eg., http://stattrek.com/lesson2/hypergeometric.aspx or
http://www.stat.ufl.edu/~berg/sta5325/files/sta5325-12.pdf for the hypergeometric.

In part 1 you have a multi-class version of the hypergeometric, which is not usually done in easily-accessible web pages. Think of it like this: P{k1,k2,k3} = P{k1 type 1, k2+k3 type 2 or 3}*P{k2 type 2, k3 type 3|k2 + k3 type 2 or 3}. Each factor is a simple hypergeometric probability as found in the cited web pages.

RGV

Thanks! :smile:
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Maybe_Memorie said:
Yes, I was trying originally to apply the binomial method but couldn't see how to...
For the second problem, you could calculate the probability of selecting three vitamin tablets. That would be equal to the number of ways you can select 3 tablets from the 8 vitamin tablets divided by the total number of ways to select 3 tablets from the 10 tablets.

You could also calculate the desired probability directly. For example, if you wanted to calculate the number of ways to select 1 drug and 2 vitamin tablets, for example, the total number of ways to do that is the number of ways to select 1 drug tablet from the 2 possible multiplied by the number of ways to draw 2 tablets from the 8 vitamin tablets.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 21 ·
Replies
21
Views
2K
  • · Replies 8 ·
Replies
8
Views
3K
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
2K
  • · Replies 24 ·
Replies
24
Views
3K
  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
2K
Replies
7
Views
3K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K
  • · Replies 16 ·
Replies
16
Views
4K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
3K
  • · Replies 18 ·
Replies
18
Views
2K