Urn problem
An urn problem is an idealized thought experiment in which some objects of real interest (such as atoms, people, cars, etc.) are represented as colored balls in an urn or other container.
One pretends to draw (remove) one or more balls from the urn;
the goal is to determine the probability of drawing one color or another,
or some other properties.
Historical remarks
Urn problems have been a part of the theory of probability since at least the publication of the Ars conjectandi by Jakob Bernoulli (1713).
Bernoulli's inspiration may have been lotteries, elections, or games of chance which involved drawing balls from a container.
It has been asserted
[1]
that
- Elections in medieval and renaissance Venice, including that of the doge, often included the choice of electors by lot, using balls of different colors drawn from an urn.
Bernoulli himself, in Ars conjectandi, considered the problem of determining, from a number of pebbles drawn from an urn, the proportions of different colors.
This problem was known as the inverse probability problem, and was a topic of research in the eighteenth century,
attracting the attention of Abraham de Moivre and Thomas Bayes.
Solution of an urn problem
Examples of urn problems
See also
Referenced By
List of combinatorics topics | List of probability topics | List of statistical topics | ProbabilityApplications | Probability Applications
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