probability

Recently, during the Chinese New Year period, I saw many people queuing up at Singapore Pools. For readers from other countries, Singapore Pools is like a betting station for lottery and sports. It was around the same period in which I was preparing to start teaching Probability to my Secondary 4 Elementary Maths students.

I decided to share with them on the probability of winning a number as a teaser to the topic. I did a poster and shared it on my Facebook. I was humbled by the response - the poster was shared 29 times!

I believe the 'truth of winning' relates well to many people.

Details of a 4D game:

There are a total of 23 winning numbers which consist of 1st, 2nd, 3rd prizes, 10 starter prizes and 10 consolation prizes.
You may choose any 4 digit numbers from 0000 to 9999.
The following poster shows that to win any prize, the chance is a mere 0.23%

How often do we fall into the trap of greed, thinking that we can be lucky one day and win some money? In the end, who is the big winner? I'm sure you have the answer.

Whether you are a parent or student, I hope this blog post has shed some light on winning 4D game through the application of Maths in everyday life.

You are a prisoner sentenced to death. The Emperor offers you a chance to live by playing a simple game. He gives you 50 black marbles, 50 white marbles and 2 empty bowls. He then says, "Divide these 100 marbles into these 2 bowls. You can divide them any way you like as long as you use all the marbles. Then I will blindfold you and mix the bowls around. You then can choose one bowl and remove ONE marble. If the marble is WHITE you will live, but if the marble is BLACK... you will die."

How do you divide the marbles up so that you have the greatest probability of choosing a WHITE marble?

Do you know how? ;) Leave your answer in the comment section. I will reveal the answer if anyone is interested to know.

In E-Math, we discussed about probability on possibility diagram, tree diagram, mutually exclusive events, independent events. Fortunately we do not go into permutation and combination where things get slightly more exciting.

Do you use more of tree or possibility diagram to help you in your probability question?

I'm going to show you an example of modified tree diagram to solve the following question

Bag A contains 15 bronze rings, 6 silver rings and 4 gold rings. Three rings are drawn at random, one after the other without replacement from bag A.

Calculate the probability of not drawing any gold ring.

Additional question: Calculate the probability of drawing all three rings that are different.

E-Maths: Probability in everyday life

E-Math: Interesting Probability Math Teaser (Plus usage of Tree Diagram)