Tuesday, February 27, 2018

probability - How do wer find this expected value?




I'm just a little confused on this. I'm pretty sure that I need to use indicators for this but I'm not sure how I find the probability. The question goes like this:





A company puts five different types of prizes into their cereal boxes, one in each box and in equal proportions. If a customer decides to collect all five prizes, what is the expected number of boxes of cereals that he or she should buy?




I have seen something like this before and I feel that I'm close, I'm just stuck on the probability. So far I have said that Xi={1if the ith box contains a new prize0if no new prize is obtained I know that the probability of a new prize after the first box is 45 (because obviously the person would get a new prize with the first box) and then the probability of a new prize after the second prize is obtained is 35, and so on and so forth until the fifth prize is obtained. What am I doing wrong?! Or "what am I missing?!" would be the more appropriate question.


Answer



As the expected number of tries to obtain a success with probability p is 1p, you get the expect number :
1+54+53+52+5=12+15+20+30+6012=1371211.41


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