[Math] ask your neighbor to water a sickly plant (conditional probability)

probabilitysolution-verification

You ask your neighbor to water a sickly plant while you are on vacation. Without water it will die with a probability of 0.8, with water it will die with a probability of 0.15. You are 90% certain that your neighbor will remember to water the plant.

a. What is the probability that the plant will be alive when you return?

$$\begin{align}\mathbb P(\text{alive}) & =1-\mathbb P(\text{dead})
\\[1ex] & =1-[(0.8)(.10)+(0.15)(0.9)]
\\[1ex] &=1-[0.08+0.135]
\\[1ex] & =1-0.215=0.785
\end{align}$$

b. If it is dead, what if the probability that your neighbor forgot to water it?

$$\begin{align}\mathbb P(\text{neighbor forgot}\mid \text{dead})
& =\dfrac{(0.8)(.10)}{(0.8)(.10)+(0.15)(0.9)}
\\[1ex] & =\dfrac{0.08}{0.215}
\\[1ex] & \approx 0.37
\end{align}$$

Does my work look correct?

Best Answer

$\color{purple}{\checkmark}$ Solution verified.

Yeah, it looks good.   You might want to include steps to indicate where you drew the numbers though.

... $\mathbb P(\text{dead}) = \mathbb P(\text{dead}\mid\text{watered})\cdot\mathbb P(\text{watered})+\mathbb P(\text{dead}\mid\text{forgot})\cdot\mathbb P(\text{forgot})$ et cetera.

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