BBy Bot
Jun 09'24

Exercise

A small boy is lost coming down Mount Washington. The leader of the search team estimates that there is a probability [math]p[/math] that he came down on the east side and a probability [math]1 - p[/math] that he came down on the west side. He has [math]n[/math] people in his search team who will search independently and, if the boy is on the side being searched, each member will find the boy with probability [math]u[/math]. Determine how he should divide the [math]n[/math] people into two groups to search the two sides of the mountain so that he will have the highest probability of finding the boy. How does this depend on [math]u[/math]?