Probability – What’s the Probability the Other Side of the Coin is Gold?

probability

4 coins are in a bucket: 1 is gold on both sides, 1 is silver on both sides, and 2 are gold on one side and silver on the other side.

I randomly grab a coin from the bucket and see that the side facing me is gold. What is the probability that the other side of the coin is gold?

I had thought that the probability is $\frac{1}{3}$ because there are 3 coins with at least one side of gold, and only 1 of these 3 coins can be gold on the other side. However, I suspect that the sides might be unique, which derails my previous logic.

Best Answer

Here's a more intuitive answer.

You have two random things going on: your choice of coin is random, and the side facing up is random. So in fact you're picking one of 8 coin-sides out of the bag, and each one occurs with equal weighting.

So let's label the sides: G1 and G2, S1 and S2, G3 and S3, and G4 and S4 (where G = gold, S = silver, and they happen to be fused together as I have written them). You choose a random coin-side. It's gold, so, it must be G1, G2, G3 or G4 - all equally probable. The reverses of those coins are, in order, G2, G1, S3 or S4 - all still equally probable, of course. So the probability is 1/2.

This simply corresponds to the fact that, if you pick a random coin-side out of the bag and it's gold, it's twice as likely to be the G1-G2 coin than the G3-S3 coin (because that coin has twice as many gold sides).

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