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Machine Learning: The Art and Science of Algorithms that Make Sense of Data
A: The expected number of heads if you chose box A is easy to calculate as
$$
E(\text{heads}| A) = \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{2} = 1
$$
However the expected number of heads if you chose box B is also the same
$$
E(\text{heads}| B) = \frac{4}{10} + \frac{6}{10} = 1
$$
The average yield being the same could make one think that both boxes yield the same. However there is one difference, its the variance. The variance of a distribution of a random variable \(X\) is defined as
$$
Var(X) = \sum_{i=0}^{N} (x_i - \bar{x})^{2}p_i
$$
where \(p_i\) is the probability of \(x_i\). Given this, lets compute the variance of each strategy
$$
Var(X | \text{Box=A}) = (\frac{1}{2} - 1)^2 \frac{1}{2} + (\frac{1}{2} - 1)^2 \frac{1}{2} = \frac{1}{4} = 0.25 \\
Var(X | \text{Box=B}) = (\frac{2}{5} - 1)^2 \frac{2}{5} + (\frac{3}{5} - 1)^2 \frac{3}{5} = \frac{6}{25} = 0.24
$$
The variance for box B is slightly tighter than box A which makes choosing the coins in box B a better strategy.
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