Post by Arlon10 on Feb 22, 2020 10:12:25 GMT


#1,2,3,4 means bag#1,2,3,4
#1 - 10/18 = 55.56%
#2 - 5/18 = 27.78%
#3 - 2/18 = 11.11%
#4 - 1/18 = 5.55%
Make up a grid to show what's in each bag. x means a blue ball, y means a non-blue ball.
#1 - x x x x x x x x x x
#2 - x x x x x y y y y y
#3 - x x y y y y y y y y
#4 - x y y y y y y y y y
You don't know the numbering of the bag you're using or what you'll pull out. We can assign grid locations to each ball. The last (rightmost) ball for row 1 is an x and it's at location 1,10. The first y on row 3 is at 3,3. The first y on row 4 is at 4,2.
Now, the probability of selecting any particular grid location is the same as any other grid location. You've picked a ball. What are the chances it's blue? Well, there are 40 equal possibilities and I count 18 blue and 22 non-blue so the chance of getting blue is 18/40 = 45%, hence the chance of getting non-blue is 55%.
We're told that the ball was blue so how may grid selections are there? 18. There are 10 grid selections available for #1, 5 grid selections for #2 and so on for the other two bags. That's my answer.
Congratulations to you and dividavi on your English. I wasn't sure what the question was till I saw dividavi 's answer. I can see now what "Is one bag more probable than the other?" means. I suppose I should have guessed that, so I will say the English is fair to middling. It would however be more clear if you said "There are four identical bags with ten marbles each of various colors. (Provide a list of the colors of the marbles in each bag.) A person then picks a blue marble from one of the bags. What is the probability it is from bag 1? Bag 2? Bag 3 Bag4?"
I think what often happens here is that people who follow these things are familiar with the type of problem and understand the English shorthand better than people who are not familiar. Same thing with the Monty Hall problem, it escapes the attention of some people that the host's choice is not random and how important that is.
I also notice Bayes' Theorem was not used. Nor do I believe anyone could use Bayes' Theorem without solving the problem otherwise first.
I realize some of you don't care what I think. Don't then.

