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Dealing with continuous variables can be tricky, but geometric probability provides a
useful approach by allowing us to transform probability problems into geometry
problems. If this sounds surprising, take a look at the following problem:
Your bus is coming at a random time between 12 pm and 1 pm. If you show up at
12:30 pm, how likely are you to catch the bus?
1
Intuitively, the answer seems to be . We can show this geometrically by
2
considering a point chosen randomly on a 1-dimensional number line: the length of
the number line between 12:30 pm and 1 pm is equal to the length from 12 pm to
12:30 pm.
Introduction
One of the main ideas in probability is to count the number of equally likely "desired"
outcomes, and then divide that by the number of equally likely total outcomes:
desire outcomes
P ( X )=
total outcomes
Since there are infinitely many possible outcomes for the value of X we will take the
equally likely outcomes as random points along the number line from 0 to 3. It’s easy
to see that X will be closer to 0 than it is to 1 if X <0.5
Probability line
Now, we can use the measures (lengths, in this 1D case) of our possible outcomes
and apply the usual probability formula. Here,
X is closer
lenght of segment where 0< X< 0.5 0.5
P ( ¿0 than 1 )= =
lenght of segment where 0< X <3 3
Example Problem
A number is uniformly chosen from [0.15, 0.25]. It was rounded to two decimal places
and then to one decimal place. The probability that the final value is 0.2 is X %. What
is X?
Assumption: Use rounding "half away from zero". That is, if the number is equally far
from the two closest numbers, choose the one away from zero. For example, 2.5 is
equally far from 2 and 3, so round 2.5 to 3. Answer 0.95
The reason as to why this works is a more advanced topic, which deals with the idea
of measure theory. Measure theory gives a rigorous framework for probability theory,
including probabilities on finite sets. Measure theory is also the key idea behind
integration in calculus, and can be used to find integrals of functions that seem non-
integrable using “standard” methods. These two ideas are not unrelated, as at a
fundamental level, probability theory is just a special case of integration.
This is most easily understood when the problem at hand is explicitly a 2D geometry
problem:
A dart is thrown at a circular dartboard such that it will land randomly over the area
of the dartboard. What is the probability that it lands closer to the center than to the
edge?
The set of outcomes are all of the points on the dartboard, which make up an area
of πr 2 where r is the radius of the circle. The points that are closer to the center
r
than to the edge are those that lie within the circle of radius around the center,
2
2 2
r πr
so the area of the "success" outcomes is π ( ) =
2 4
Thus,
The difficulty associated with geometric probability usually comes from one of two
areas: the first is finding a good way to model the problem geometrically, and the
second is in trying to determine the areas/volumes of particular regions in order to
calculate the relative probabilities. As in finite probability, it is sometimes simpler to
find the probability of the complement.
To make sure you've got down the basic ideas of 2D geometric probability, try this
similar question. Note that many 2D geometry problems, such as the one below, use
the ideas of composite figures. If you are not familiar with that concept, you may
want to take a look at composite figures first.
If the product of these averages can be expressed as , where and are coprime
positive integers, give your answer as .
Of course, not all problems will be so explicitly geometric in nature. As usual, one of
the signs that we might want to apply geometric probability is that we are dealing
with continuous variables. Let's see how we can approach the following example:
If you'd like to test your skills at turning probability problems into 3D geometry
problems, take a shot at this challenging problem which is similar to the example
above: