Applied Mathematics
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Mathematics Secondary EducationProblem of the Month
A Fair Game... Or Is It?
Two people, Alice and Bob, are playing a game. They have a 16-sided die, with the faces numbered from 1 to 16. The die is rolled over and over until one of the following things happens:
(A) a one is rolled.
(B) an even number is rolled, and a multiple of 8 is rolled on the very next roll.
If (A) happens first, then Alice wins. If (B) happens first, then Bob wins.
The question is, what is Alice's probability of winning, and what is Bob's probability of winning?
Send your answers to this problem to me (Joseph DiMuro) at joseph.dimuro@biola.edu by February 29, 2012.
“Mathematics has always been something that interested me, but it wasn't until I came to Biola that I really began to develop a passion for the subject.”
-Brittany Lane
Mathematics, 2008
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- Thorough in both educational quality and personal attention to students
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