Video Transcript
A fanzine website for the TV show A
Maze in Space collects data on the number of new alien species encountered by two
starships on each season of the show. The data for seasons one, two, and
seven are shown in the table below, split between the two starships Zeta and
Geoda. Find the probability that a new
alien species chosen at random was encountered by starship Geoda. Give your answer to three decimal
places.
We want to find the probability
that a new alien species chosen at random was encountered by starship Geoda. This doesn’t specify which season
we’re interested in, so we’re going to use the total. And so we begin by recalling that
the probability of an event occurring is found by dividing the number of ways that
event can occur by the total number of possible outcomes. So in this case, we’re going to
find the number of alien species found in total by starship Geoda. And then we’ll divide that by the
total number of alien species encountered altogether.
Looking at the totals, we see that
starship Geoda discovered a total of 72 alien species. And the total was 83. So the probability that a new alien
species chosen at random was encountered by starship Geoda is found by dividing 72
by 83, which is 0.8674 and so on. Correct to three decimal places,
that’s 0.867.
