several friends charted a boat for the days fishing. They caught a total of 68 fish. Determine the empirical probability the next fish caught is a King Fish.
Table Shows
16 Grouper, 17 Sharks, 2 flounders and 33 King Fish

Question

several friends charted a boat for the days fishing. They caught a total of 68 fish.  Determine the empirical probability the next fish caught is a King Fish.
Table Shows
16 Grouper, 17 Sharks, 2 flounders and 33 King Fish

tkhunny · Answer

Have you considered counting all the fish and calculating the empirical probabilities?

tkhunny · Answer

Feel free to answer on this thread.

Empirical Probabilities are just those that are observed.  They do not require theories.

How many fish in total?

anonymous · Answer

68

tkhunny · Answer

Perfect.  2/68 = 0.0294 -- This is the empirical probability of catching a flounder, given that you caught something.

You do the King Fish, since that's what the problem statement wants.

anonymous · Answer

0.485...

tkhunny · Answer

That's what I get.  That's the arithmetic.  Can you now answer the question?

anonymous · Answer

so I just divide the number of fish by the total to get the awnser

tkhunny · Answer

Please don't do any more dividing.  You already calculated the right values.

0.485... is the empirical probability of catching a King Fish, given that you caught something.

What does the problem statement ask?

anonymous · Answer

no I was saying..when dealing with empirical probability do I always divide the sum into the total

tkhunny · Answer

That is an excellent question.  The point of a Probability Distribution is to cover ALL possibilities - 100% of the probability.  Check it out.

Calculate the individual empirical probabilities.
Grouper 16/68 = 0.23529
Sharks 17/68 = 0.25000
Flounders 2/68 = 0.02941
King Fish  33/68 = 0.48530

0.23529 + 0.25000 + 0.02941 + 0.48530 = 1.00000 -- Pretty cool?