Suppose that the genders of the three children of a certain family are soon to be revealed. Outcomes are thus triples of \"girls\" ( ) and \"boys\" ( ), which we write , , etc. For each outcome, let be the random variable counting the number of girls in each outcome. For example, if the outcome is , then . Suppose that the random variable is defined in terms of as follows: . The values of are thus: Calculate the probability distribution function of , i.e. the function . First, fill in the first row with the values of . Then fill in the appropriate probabilities in the second row. | | | | | |
Form the given table we can see that X can take three values -3, 5, and -1. Total number of outcomes are 8. Out of these 8 outcomes three are -3. So
P(X=-3) = 3/8
And out of these 8 outcomes one is 5. So
P(X=5) = 1/8
And out of these 8 outcomes four are -1. So
P(X=-1) = 4/8
Following is the completed table:
| X | -3 | -1 | 5 |
| P(X) | (3/8) | (4/8) | (1/8) |