Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2022

Friday quiz maths problem 16 Sep 2022

Sadly the Friday quiz that I subscribe to is having a break for three weeks. I have subscribed to other maths problems and this one that caught my eye this week: The Baseball Game Ivy has created a game for her school’s math fair. She put three baseballs, numbered 1, 2, and 3, into a bag. Without looking, a player will randomly draw a baseball from the bag, record its number, and then put the baseball back into the bag. They will do this two more times and then calculate the sum of the three numbers recorded. If the sum is less than 8, the player will win a prize. What is the probability that a player will win a prize when they play this game once? This isn't too difficult to work out. I did it with a spreadsheet but you can reason it out I think.  Look away now if you want to work it out for yourself first.  I haven't yet had the official answer, but the answer that I and my partner have both found is 85.185%, that being 23 winning combinations out of 27 possible combinations.