Year: 2002
Paper: 3
Question Number: 12
Course: LFM Stats And Pure
Section: Conditional Probability
No solution available for this problem.
Difficulty Rating: 1700.0
Difficulty Comparisons: 0
Banger Rating: 1502.1
Banger Comparisons: 2
In a game, a player tosses a biased coin
repeatedly until two successive tails occur, when the game terminates.
For each head which occurs the player wins $\pounds 1$.
If $E$ is the expected number of tosses of the
coin in the course of a game, and $p$ is the probability of a head, explain why
\[
E = p \l 1 + E \r + \l 1 - p \r p \l 2 + E \r + 2 \l 1 - p \r ^2\,,
\]
and hence determine $E$ in terms of $p$.
Find also, in terms of $p$, the expected winnings in the course of a game.
A second game is played,
with the same rules, except that the player continues to
toss the coin until $r$ successive tails occur.
Show that the expected number of tosses in the
course of a game is given by the expression
$\displaystyle {1 - q^r \over p q^r}\,$, where $q = 1 - p$.