Assignment 2

Spring Semester 2019

ES 202 - Engineering Statistics

1. Three machines are available to cut concrete blocks. Each machine needs to be
brought down from time to time for maintenance. At any given moment, the
probability that a machine is down is 0.10, and the probability that it is functioning
is 0.90. Assume the machines function independently. Let X denote the number of
machines that are up and running at a given moment.
(a) Write the range set of X.
(b) Make a probability distribution table of X.
(c) Sketch a graph of p.m.f. of X.
X 0 1 2 3
Answer: (a) {0, 1, 2, 3} (b)
P r(X = x) 0.001 0.027 0.243 0.729
2. The number of flaws in a 1-inch length of copper wire manufactured by a certain
process varies from wire to wire. Overall, 48% of the wires produced have no flaws,
39% have one flaw, 12% have two flaws, and 1% have three flaws. Let X be the
number of flaws in a randomly selected piece of wire.
(a) Write the range set of X.
(b) Write p.m.f. of X in tabular form (i.e., make a probability distribution table
of X).
(c) Sketch a graph of p.m.f. of X.
(d) Write c.d.f. of X in tabular form.
(e) Find F (2) and F (1.5).
(f) Calculate mean number of flaws in a randomly selected piece of wire.
Answer: (a) {0, 1, 2, 3} (e) 0.99, 0.87 (f) 0.66

X 0 1 2 3
(b & d) P r(X = x) 0.48 0.39 0.12 0.01
P r(X ≤= x) 0.48 0.39 0.12 0.01

3. A certain industrial process is brought down for recalibration whenever the quality
of the items produced falls below specifications. Let X represent the number of
times the process is recalibrated during a week, and assume that X has the following
probability mass function:

X 0 1 2 3 4
P r(X = x) 0.35 0.25 0.20 0.15 0.05

Find the mean and variance of X.

Answer: E(X) = 1.30, V (X) = 1.51

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4. A chemical supply company ships a certain solvent in 10–gallon drums. Let X
represent the number of drums ordered by a randomly chosen customer. Assume
X has the following probability mass function:

X 1 2 3 4 5
P r(X = x) 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1

(a) Find the mean number of drums ordered.

(b) Find the variance of the number of drums ordered.
(c) Find the standard deviation of the number of drums ordered.
(d) Let Y be the number of gallons ordered. Find the probability mass function
of Y .
(e) Find the mean number of gallons ordered.
(f) Find the variance of the number of gallons ordered.
(g) Find the standard deviation of the number of gallons ordered.

Answer: (a) 2.3 (b) 1.81 (c) 1.345

Y 10 20 30 40 50
(d) (e) 23 (f) 181 (g) 13.45
P r(Y = y) 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1
5. Suppose that the probability of having x accidents is

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P r(X = x) =
2x+1
(a) Write the range set of X.
(b) Check that the given function is a valid probability mass function.

Answer: (a) {0, 1, 2, 3, . . . ∞ }

6. A certain type of component is packaged in lots of four. Let X represent the

number of properly functioning components in a randomly chosen lot. Assume
that the probability that exactly x components function is proportional to x; in
other words, assume that the probability mass function of X is given by

cx for x = 1, 2, 3 or 4
P r(X = x) = fX (x) =
0 otherwise

where c is a constant.

(a) Find the value of the constant c so that p(x) is a probability mass function.
(b) Find P r(X = 2).
(c) Find the mean number of properly functioning components.
(d) Find the variance of the number of properly functioning components.
(e) Find the standard deviation of the number of properly functioning compo-
nents.

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 Answer: (a) 0.1 (b) 0.2 (c) 3 (d) 1 (e) 1

7. Two fair dice, one red and one blue, are rolled. A score is calculated to be twice
the value of the blue die if the red die has an even value, and to be the value of the
red die minus the value of the blue die if the red die has an odd value. Construct
and plot the probability mass function and the cumulative distribution function of
the score.

X -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 6 8 10 12
1 1 2 2 3 3 2 5 1 4 3 3 3 3
Answer: fX (x) 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36
1 2 4 6 9 12 14 19 20 24 27 30 33 36
FX (x) 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36

8. A fair coin is tossed three times. A player wins $1 if the first toss is a head, but
loses $1 if the first toss is a tail. Similarly, the player wins $2 if the second toss is a
head, but loses $2 if the second toss is a tail, and wins or loses $3 according to the
result of the third toss. Let the random variable X be the total winnings after the
three tosses (possibly a negative value if losses are incurred).

(a) Construct the probability mass function of X.

(b) Construct the cumulative distribution function of X.
(c) What is the most likely value of the random variable X?
(d) What is the expected winnings or loss of player if he plays 100 games?

X -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
1 1 1 2 1 1 1
Answer: (a) and (b) P r(X = x) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
(c) 0 (d) 0
1 2 3 5 6 7 8
P r(X ≤ x) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

9. Suppose that you organize a game whereby a player rolls two dice and you pay the
player the dollar amount of the difference in the scores. Let X denote the amount
that you pay to the player.

(a) Write the range set of X.

(b) Write p.m.f. of X in tabular form.
(c) Write c.d.f. of X in tabular form.
(d) Find the expected amount of payment to the player if he plays 10 games.
(e) Find the variance of X.
(f) If you set a fee to be charged from the player before he plays, what should be
the fair amount charged per game?

Answer: (a) {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } (d) $19.4 (e) 2.052 (f) $1.94

X 0 1 2 3 4 5
3 5 4 3 2 1
(b) and (c) P r(X = x) 18 18 18 18 18 18
3 8 12 15 17 18
P r(X ≤ x) 18 18 18 18 18 18

10. After manufacture, computer disks are tested for errors. Let X be the number of
errors detected on a randomly chosen disk. The following table presents values of
the cumulative distribution function F (x) of X.

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 X 0 1 2 3 4
P r(X ≤ x) 0.41 0.72 0.83 0.95 1.00

(a) What is the probability that two or fewer errors are detected?
(b) What is the probability that more than three errors are detected?
(c) What is the probability that exactly one error is detected?
(d) What is the probability that no errors are detected?
(e) What is the most probable number of errors to be detected?

Answer: (a) 0.83 (b) 0.05 (c) 0.31 (d) 0.41 (e) 0

11. A company has five warehouses, only two of which have a particular product in
stock. A salesperson calls the five warehouses in a random order until a warehouse
with the product is reached. Let the random variable X be the number of calls
made by the salesperson.

(a) Calculate the probability mass function of X.

(b) Calculate the cumulative distribution function of X.
(c) What is the probability that the salesperson makes more than two calls to
locate the product?
(d) What is the expected number of warehouses called by the salesperson?
(e) Calculate the variance and standard deviation of the number of warehouses
called by the salesperson.
X 1 2 3 4
4 3 2 1 3
Answer: (a) and (b) P r(X = x) 10 10 10 10
(c) (d) 2 (e) 1, 1
4 7 9 10 10
P r(X ≤ x) 10 10 10 10

12. Suppose that a random variable X can take the value 1, 2, or any other positive
integer.
c
(a) Is it possible that P r(X = i) = for some value of the constant c?
i2
c
(b) Is it possible that P r(X = i) = for some value of the constant c?
i
Answer: (a) Yes (b) No

13. Two fair dice, one red and one blue, are rolled, and a fair coin is tossed. If a head
is obtained on the coin toss, then a player wins the sum of the scores on the two
dice. If a tail is obtained on the coin toss, then the player wins the score on the red
die. What are the expected winnings?

X 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Answer: 6 7 8 9 10 11 6 5 4 3 2 1
fX (x) 72 72 72 72 72 72 72 72 72 72 72 72
E(X) = $378 per game

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14. A player pays $1 to play a game where three fair dice are rolled. If three 6s are
obtained the player wins $500, and otherwise the player wins nothing. What are
the expected net winnings of this game? Would you want to play this game? Does
your answer depend upon how many times you can play the game?

Answer: Expected winnings are $1.31 per game. Play as much as you can.

15. Given that X has the distribution function



 0 f or x < −1

1
 4 f or −1≤x<1



FX (x) = 12 f or 1≤x<3
 3
f or 3≤x<5




 4
1 f or x≥5

find the following probabilities:

(a) P r(X ≤ 3) (b) P r(X = 3) (c) P r(X < 3)

(d) P r(X > 1) (e) P r(−1 < X < 4)
3 1 1 1 1
Answer: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
4 4 2 2 2
16. A coin is biased so that heads is three times as likely as tails. For three independent
tosses of the coin, let X be the total number of heads observed. Find

(a) the probability distribution of X;

(b) the probability of getting at most two heads;
(c) P r(1 < X ≤ 3);
(d) P r(X > 2);
(e) the Mean and Variance of X.
37 27 27 9 9
Answer: (b) (c) (d) (e) E(x) = ; V ar(X) =
64 32 64 4 16
17. A person uses a bunch of n keys to open his door lock where only one key is the
right one. He tries different keys, one at a time, until the lock opens. What is the
average number of keys that he has to try before he unlocks the door?
n+1
Answer:
2
18. A box contains 7 red and 3 blue balls. Ball are selected at random, one at a time
and without replacement, until we get the first red ball. What is the expected
number of balls drawn until we get the first red ball?
11
Answer: = 1.375
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19. A heavy-equipment salesperson can contact either one or two customers per day
with probability 1/3 and 2/3, respectively. Each contact will result in either no
sale or a $50,000 sale, with the probabilities 0.9 and 0.1, respectively. Give the

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 probability distribution for daily sales. Find the mean and standard deviation of
the daily sales.

Answer: E(S) = 8333.33 V ar(S) = 4.496 × 108 SD(S) = 21202.7552

20. A salesman has scheduled two appointments to sell encyclopedias. His first appoint-
ment will lead to a sale with probability 3/10, and his second will lead independently
to a sale with probability 6/10. Any sale made is equally likely to be either for the
deluxe model, which costs $1000, or the standard model, which costs $500. Deter-
mine the probability mass function of X, the total dollar value of all sales.

X 0 500 1000 1500 2000

Answer: E(X) = $675
P r(X = x) 0.28 0.27 0.315 0.090 0.045
21. A rental agency, which leases heavy equipment by the day, has found that one
expensive piece of equipment is leased, on the average, only one day in five. If
rental on one day is independent of rental on any other day, find the probability
distribution of X , the number of days between a pair of rentals.
 n−1
1 4
Answer: RX = {1, 2, 3, . . . ∞} fX (x) = ×
5 5
22. An insurance company issues a one-year $1000 policy insuring against an occurrence
A that historically happens to 2 out of every 100 owners of the policy. Adminis-
trative fees are $15 per policy and are not part of the company’s profit. How much
should the company charge for the policy if it requires that the expected profit per
policy be $50?

Hint: If C is the premium for the policy, the company’s profit is C − 15 if A

does not occur and C − 15 − 1000 if A does occur.

Answer: C = $85

23. Two coins are to be flipped. The first coin will land on heads with probability 0.6,
the second with probability 0.7. Assume that the results of the flips are independent,
and let X equal the total number of heads that result.

(a) Find P r(X = 1).

(b) Determine E(X) and V ar(X).

Answer: (a) 0.46 (b) E(X) = 1.3; V ar(X) = 0.45

24. Abox contains 5 red and 5 blue marbles. Two marbles are withdrawn randomly. If
they are the same color, then you win $2; if they are different colors, then you lose
$1.00. Calculate the expected value of the amount you win?
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Answer: = 0.66
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25. Yolanda and Zach are running for president of the student association. One thou-
sand students will be voting. Suppose the number of votes that Yolanda receives

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is equally likely to be any number from 0 to 1000. What is the probability that
Yolanda beats Zach by at least 100 votes?
451
Answer:
1001