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Grinch

The Problem Statement

I got extremely sick and was wondering if I got a weird virus. I heard there was this Grinch Bug going around, making you sick throughout Christmas Holiday. I decided to go to the hospital to get it checked out. The doctor told me their test measurements are 99 percent accurate (regardless if results are positive or negative). This Grinch Bug only occurs randomly in the population (assume infected people are independent and distributed evenly), around 1 in every 10,000 people. He told me not to worry.

Today I got the report. It came out positive! What are the chances I actually have the disease? Should I be worried?

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Blinkdagger wish you the best in the holidays. Like the rest of you, we will be taking a short break and come back with new goodies next year. You will be hearing from our usual suspects and our new member Zane. Lot more to come next year. So sit tight.

The Prize

The winner will receive a 10 dollar gift certificate to Amazon.com!

The Rules

  1. Email your answers to mondaymathmadness at gmail dot com.

  2. Inelgible for any one person to win more than once per year. But you should still submit your answer!

  3. Answer must be explained. You must show your work! We will accept answers in the form of a MATLAB script as well. We will be the final judge on whether an answer was properly explained or not.

  4. The deadline to submit answers is December 29th 2008, Monday 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time

  5. The winners will be chosen randomly from all the submittals using a random number generator.

  6. The winner will be announced at 9:00 AM PST January 2nd, 2009.

  7. Comments for this post should only be used to clarify the problem. Please do not discuss ANY potential solutions.

  8. Please spread the word about our contest by stumbling this webpage!