Chapter 06
Chapter 06
Chapter 06
Chapter 6
Examples
The number of employees absent from the day shift on
Monday, the number might be 0, 1, 2, 3, …The number
absent is the random variable
The grade level (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, or Senior)
of the members of the St. James High School Varsity girls’
basketball team. Grade level is the random variable
6-6 Copyright 2018 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.
Two Types of Random Variables
One type of random variable is the discrete random
variable
Discrete variables are usually the result of counting
DISCRETE RANDOM VARIABLE A random variable that can assume
only certain clearly separated values.
Examples
Tossing a coin three times and counting the number of
heads
A bank counting the number of credit cards carried by a
group of customers
Example
A young family has two children, both boys. The
probability of the third birth being a boy is still .50. The
gender of the third child is independent of the gender of
the other two.
There are five flights daily from Pittsburgh via US Airways into the Bradford
Regional Airport in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Suppose the probability that any
flight arrives late is .20.
What is the
probability that none P(x) = nCr(π)r 1 − π n − r
of the flights are late P(0) = 5C0(.20)0 1 − .20 5 − 0
today? = (1)(1)(.3277) = .3277
What is the
probability that P(x) = nCr(π)r 1 − π n − r
exactly one of the P(1) = 5C1(.20)1 1 − .20 5 − 1
flights is late today? = (1)(1)(.4096) = .4096
There are five flights daily from Pittsburgh via US Airways into the Bradford
Regional Airport in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Suppose the probability that any
flight arrives late is .20. What is the probability that none of the flights are late
today? What is the probability that exactly 1 of the flights is late today?
1. What is the probability that the front seat occupants in exactly 7 of the 12
vehicles are wearing seat belts?
P(x) = nCr(π)r 1 − π n−r
Budget Airlines is a seasonal airline that operates flights from Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina, to various cities in the northeast. Recently Budget has been
concerned about the number of lost bags. Ann Poston from the Analytics
Department was asked to study the issue. She randomly selected a sample of
500 flights and found that a total of twenty bags were lost on the sampled flights.
The mean number of bags lost, μ, is found by 20/500 = .04
The probability that no bags are lost is found using formula 6-7.
μxe−μ .040𝑒 −0.04
P 0 = = = .9608
x! 0!