479,903 views
21 votes
21 votes
Watch help video

a
Mr. and Mrs. Doran have a genetic history such that the probability that a child be
born to them with a certain trait is 5/9. If they have five children, what is the
probability that exactly two of their five children will have that trait? Round your
answer to the nearest thousandth.

User Takermania
by
3.0k points

2 Answers

21 votes
21 votes

Explanation:

the basic probabilty of being born with that certain trait is 5/9.

that means the probabilty of being born without that certain trait is 1 - 5/9 = 4/9.

the probability of 2 children being born with that trait and 3 being born without that trait is

5/9 × 5/9 × 4/9 × 4/9 × 4/9

but as you can see, this only covers a specific case, e.g. when the first 2 children have the trait, and the younger siblings don't.

for the general probability of that questioned result we need to multiply this with the number of different combinations : in how many ways can I pick 2 children out of 5, when the sequence of the 2 picked children is irrelevant ?

this is C (5, 2) = 5!/((5-2)!×2) = 5!/(3!×2) = 5×4/2 = 5×2 = 10

so, the probability is

10×(5/9)²×(4/9)³ = 10×5²×4³/9⁵ = 0.270961405...

≈ 0.271

User Trauer
by
3.0k points
18 votes
18 votes

At he love that have been happy

User RobWhistler
by
3.1k points