Consider the following two sets:

Set A = { 2,3,4,6 }
Set B = { 2,5,7,9 }

What is the probability that two randomly chosen elements from B would add up to be more than the product of two randomly chosen elements from A?

The approach using Brute Arithmatic . The top row shows the six products of Set A. The left column shows the six sums of B


6 8 12 12 18 24
7 M L L L L L
9 M M L L L L
11 M M L L L L
12 M M x x L L
14 M M M M L L
!6 M M M M L L


So we see that out of 36 possibilities, 15 have tha B sum greater than the A product. So the probability is 15/36 = 41.667%

Posted by TomM on 2002-05-29 17:03:31