Question

QUESTION 3 - Distinguish whether the following pairs of events are dependent

or independent: a) rolling a die and getting a 4 and rolling a second die and
obtaining an even number? b) tossing a coin to obtain a head and then tossing a
coin to obtain a tail? c) a person who is short sighted and a person wearing
glasses?​

Answer 1

Two eventis are independent if knowledge about the first doesn't change your expectation about the second.

a) Independent: After you know that the first die showed 4, you stille expect all 6 numbers from the second. So, the fact that the first die showed 4 doesn't change your expectation about the second die: it can still show numbers from 1 to 6 with probability 1/6 each.

b) Independent: It's just the same as before. After you know that the first coin landed on heads, you still expect the second coin to land on heads or tails with probability 1/2 each. Knowledge about the first coin changed nothing about your expectation about the second coin.

a) Dependent: In this case, there is a cause-effect relation, so the events are dependent: knowing that a person is short-sighted makes you almost sure that he/she will wear glasses. So, knowledge about being short sighted changed your expectation about wearing glasses.