The probability that Silver coin is drawn again

bayes-theoremconditional probabilityprobability

Two boxes contain coins. One box has $1$ silver and $3$ gold coins, the other box has $2$ silver coins and $1$ gold. A box is randomly chosen, and a coin is randomly selected. The coin is found to be silver. If a second coin is selected from the same box what is the probability that it will be silver also?

My try:
I have found the following probabilities:
let $A$ is an event that Box $1$ is chosen,$S$ be an event the coin is silver.
Also $A^c$ is the event of choosing Box $2$.

By Bayes Theorem we have:
$$P(A/B)=\frac{P(B/A)P(A)}{P(B/A)P(A)+P(B/A^c)P(A^c)}=\frac{\frac{1}{4}\times 0.5}{\frac{1}{4}\times 0.5+\frac{2}{3}\times 0.5}=\frac{3}{11}$$
Like-wise
$$P(A^c/B)=\frac{P(B/A^c)P(A^c)}{P(B/A)P(A)+P(B/A^c)P(A^c)}=\frac{\frac{2}{3}\times 0.5}{\frac{1}{4}\times 0.5+\frac{2}{3}\times 0.5}=\frac{4}{11}$$

Any help here?

Best Answer

You have made a calculation error. We must have $$\Pr[A \mid B] + \Pr[A^c \mid B] = 1.$$ The second probability should be $\Pr[A^c \mid B] = 8/11$.

The rest of the question is straightforward: the probability that the second coin drawn from the same box is also silver is equal to $$0 \Pr[A \mid B] + (1/2) \Pr[A^c \mid B] = 4/11.$$ This is because if the box that was chosen was the first one, there are no more silver coins to be drawn. If the box was the second one, then of the remaining two coins in the box, one is silver and will be drawn with probability $1/2.$

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