Bayes' Theorem Probability Question

89 Views Asked by At

You go on vacation and ask your friends to water your plant. If your friends water the plant, it will survive your absence with probability $0.9$. Otherwise, if they forget to water it, it will die with probability $0.6$. Your friends will forget to water your plant with probability $0.3$. You return home from your vacation and find your plant dead. What is the probability that your friends did not water it?

Solution attempt: Let A denote event your friends water the plant.

Let B denote event the plant dies.

We have $P(B^C|A)=0.9, P(B|A^c)=0.6,P(A^c)=0.3$

We want to calculate $P(A^c|B) = \frac{P(B|A^c) \cdot P(A^c)}{P(B|A^c) \cdot P(A^c)+P(B|A)P(A)} = \frac{0.6 \cdot 0.3}{0.6 \cdot 0.3 + (1-0.9) \cdot (1-0.3)} = 0.72$.

Is this correct?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

Here +D is Dead , -D is not Dead
+W is Watered , -W is not Watered

Listing the various Probabilities given :

$P(+D|+W)=0.1$
$P(+D|-W)=0.6$
$P(-D|+W)=0.9$
$P(-D|-W)=0.4$

$P(+W)=0.7$
$P(-W)=0.3$

Evaluating the Probabilities necessary :

$P(+D)=P(+D|+W)P(+W)+P(+D|-W)P(-W)$ (Summation over Dead with Watering + Dead without Watering)
$P(+D)=0.1 \times 0.7 + 0.6 \times 0.3$
$P(+D)=0.07 + 0.18$
$P(+D)=0.25$

$P(-D)=0.75$

Computing the wanted Probability :

$P(-W|+D)=P(+D|-W)P(-W)/P(+D)$
$P(-W|+D)=0.6 \times 0.3 / 0.25$
$P(-W|+D)=18/25$

$P(-W|+D)=0.72$

Your Solution has been verified !