Basic Concepts of Probability

Experiment: Experiment is an act that can be repeated under given conditions.

Trail: Unit of an experiment is known as trial. This means that trial is a special case of
experiment. Experiment may be a trial or two or more trials.
.
Outcomes: The result of an experiment is known as outcomes.
Ex: Throwing a die is a trial and getting 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 is an outcome

Equally likely Outcomes: Outcomes of a trial are said to be equally likely if we have no reason
to expect any one rather than the other. Example-1) In tossing a fair coin, the outcomes head and
tail are equally likely,2) In throwing a balanced die all the six faces are equally likely.

Mutually Exclusive Outcomes: Outcomes or cases are said to be mutually exclusive if the
happening of any one of them precludes the happening of all others. Example-1) In tossing a
coin, the outcomes hear and tail are mutually exclusive.2) In throwing a die, the six outcomes
which are the different points on the faces of the die is mutually exclusive.

Sample space: The collection or totality of all possible outcomes of a random experiment is
called sample space. Sample space is usually denoted by S or .
Example:1) If we toss a coin, the sample space is, ={H,T}.
Where H and T denote the head and tail of the coin,respectively,2)If a six –sided die is thrown,
the sample space is, ={1,2,3,4,5,6}.

Events: An event is a subset of the sample space. Events are generally denoted by capital letters
A, B, C, etc.

Event Space: The class of all events associated with a given experiment is defined to be the
event space. It is usually denoted by A.

Example: Suppose a fair coin is tossed twice, then the sample space of the experiment will be
= {HH, HT, [Link]}.
Here the event space will contain events.

There are three definitions of probability: classical, empirical, and subjective.

Classical or mathematical Probability:

If there are n mutually exclusive, equally likely and exhaustive outcomes of an experiment and if
m of these outcomes are favorable to an event A, then the probability of the event A which is
denoted by is defined by
= Favorable outcomes of an event A/Total number of outcomes of the experiments

Example: After tossing a coin what is the probability that we will get head?

Solution:
We know,
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Here total number of outcome is n= 2 and favorable outcome, m=1
So
Example: Tickets are numbered from 1 to 100. They are well shuffled and a ticket is drawn at
random. What is the probability that the drawn ticket has
1) An odd number
2) A number 4 or multiple of 4
3) A number which is greater than 70 and
4) A number which is square?

Solution

Since there are 100 tickets, the total number of exclusive mutually exclusive and equally likely
case is 100.

1) Let denote the event that the ticket drawn an odd number. Since there are 50 odd
number tickets so the number of cases favorable to the event is 50.
.

2) Let denote the event that the ticket drawn has a number 4 or multiple of 4. The
numbers favorable to event are . The total number of
cases will be .

3) Let denote the event that the drawn ticket has a number greater than 70. Since the
number greater than 70 are . Therefore, 30 cases are favorable to the
event .
.
4) Let denote the event that the drawn ticket has a number which is a square. Since the
squares between 1 and 100 are and 100. So the cases
favorable to event are 10 in number. Hence,
.

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Empirical or statistical probability:
If an experiment is repeated a large number of times under the same conditions, then the
probability of an event A is the limiting value of the ratio of the number of times that the event A
happens to the total number of trails, as the number of trails increases indefinitely large, provided
the ratio approaches a finite and unique limit .

Example: Throughout her teaching career Professor Jones has awarded 186 A’s out of 1,200
students. What is the probability that a student in her section this semester will receive an A?

Solution: To find the probability a selected student earned an A:

Subjective probability is based on whatever information is available.

Laws of Probability:

There are two laws which are very important.

1. All probabilities are between 0 and 1 inclusive

i.e.
2. The sum of all the probabilities in the sample space is 1
i.e.

Probability Rules:

Addition Rule

 Specific Addition Rule

If two events are mutually exclusive, then the probability of either occurring is the sum of the
probabilities of each occurring.

P (A or B) = P (A) + P (B).

Example on probabilities:

Example: A bag contains 4 white, 6 black balls and 5 green balls. If one ball is drawn at random
from the bag, what probability that it is 1) black, 2) white, 3) white or black.

Solution: Total numbers of balls are [Link] one ball is draw from the bag; there are 15
mutually exclusive, equally likely and exhaustive outcomes of this experiment.

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1) Let A be the event that the ball is black, and then the number of outcomes favorable to A is
[Link]

P (A) =Number of black balls/Total number of balls= =0.4.

2) Let B be the event that the ball is white, and then the favorable outcomes corresponding to B
is [Link]

P (B) = =0.266

3) Let C be the event that the ball is white or black, then

P(C) =P (A or B) = + =

Example
If we toss a coin then what is the probability of head or tail?

Solution
Here there are two events, namely event = and event = . So that

 General Addition Rule:

In events which are not mutually exclusive, there is some overlap. When P (A) and P (B) are
added, the probability of the intersection (and) is added twice. To compensate for that double
addition, the intersection needs to be subtracted.

P (A or B) = P (A) + P (B) - P (A and B)

Example:
In a sample of 500 students, 320 said they had a stereo, 175 said they had a TV, and 100 said

they had both. 5 said they had neither. If a student is selected at random, what is the probability
that the student has only a stereo or TV? What is the probability that the student has both a stereo
and TV?

Solution: Let S and T be the events that students had stereo and TV, respectively. Then the
probability that student has only stereo or TV is-
P(S or T) = P(S) + P (T) - P(S and T)
= 320/500 + 175/500 – 100/500
= .79.
The probability that the student has both a stereo and TV
P(S and TV) = 100/500
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 = .20
Example
Mr. X feels that the probability that he will pass Mathematics is and Statistics is . If the

probability that he will pass both the course is . What is the probability that he will pass at
least one of the course?

Solution
Let and be the events that he will pass the courses Mathematics and Statistics respectively.
The event means that at least one of or occurs. Therefore

Example : Let's consider a deck of standard playing cards.

1.
Suppose we draw one card at random from the deck and define the following events:
E = the card drawn is an ace
F = the card drawn is a king
Use these definitions to find P(E or F).
Solution:
since E and F have no outcomes in common, we can use the Addition Rule for Disjoint Events:
P(E or F) = P(E) + P(F) = 4/52 + 4/52 = 8/52 = 2/13
2.
Considering the deck of playing cards, where one is drawn at random. Suppose we define the
following events:
F = the card drawn is a king
G = the card drawn is a heart
Use these definitions to find P(F or G).
Solution:
Unlike in the previous example, events F and G, do have an outcome in common - the king of
hearts - so we'll need to use the General Addition Rule:
P(E or F)
= P(E) + P(F) - P(E and F)
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= 4/52 + 13/52 - 1/52
= 16/52 = 4/13

Example-2: A card is drawn from a pack of 52 cards. Find the probability that it is 1) a red card,
2) a spade, 3) an ace, 4) not a spade and e) a king or queen.

Solution: when a card is draw from a pack of 52 cards, the total number of equally likely,
mutually exclusive and exhaustive outcomes are [Link] is, here n=52.

1) Let A be the event of drawing a red card. There are 26 black and 26 red cards in a pack and
any one of the red cards can be drawn in 26 ways.

That is, m=[Link] the probability of a red card is

P (A) = .

2) Let B be the event of drawing a spade. There are 13 spades in a pack of 52 cards. That is
m=[Link] the probability of a spade is

P (B) =

3) Let C be the event of drawing an ace. There are four aces in all. That is ,m=[Link] the
probability of an ace is

P(C) =

4) Let D be the event that the card is not a spade. In 52 cards, only 13 are spades and the
remaining 39 are not spades.

That is m=52-13=39

The probability that the card is not spade is

P (D) =

Alternately, P (D) =1-P (B)

=1-

5) Let E be the event that the card is a king or [Link] of 52 cards, there are 4 kings and 4
queens. That is m=8

P (E) =

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Exercise: A student is taking two courses, history and math. The probability the student will
pass the history course is .60, and the probability of passing the math course is .70. The
probability of passing both is .50. What is the probability of passing at least one?

Joint probability:

Joint probability is the probability of two events in conjunction. That is, it is the probability of
both events together. The joint probability of A and B is written P (A and B) or.

Example:

The question, "Do you like watching TV?" was asked of 100 people. Results are shown in the
table. What is the probability of a randomly selected individual being a male who likes watching
TV?

Yes No Total
Male 19 41 60
Female 12 28 40
Total 31 69 100

Solution: This is just a joint probability. The number of "Male and like watching TV" divided
by the total = 19/100 = 0.19

Marginal probability:

Marginal probability is the probability of A, regardless of whether event B did or did not occur. If
B can be thought of as the event of a random variable X having a given outcome, the marginal
probability of A can be obtained by summing the joint probabilities over all outcomes for X.

Example:

The question, "Do you like watching TV?" was asked of 100 people. Results are shown in
the table. What is the probability of a randomly selected individual like watching TV?

Yes No Total
Male 19 41 60
Female 12 28 40
Total 31 69 100

Solution:

Since no mention is made of gender, this is a marginal probability, the total who like watching
TV divided by the total = 31/100 = 0.31.

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Conditional probability
Let and be two events. The conditional probability of event given that has occurred,
is defined by the symbol and is found to be:

; provided .

Similarly, ; provided .

Example
A hamburger chain found that 75% of all customers use salad, 80% use ketchup and 65% use
both. What are the probabilities that a ketchup user uses salad and that a salad user uses ketchup?

Solution
Let be the event “customer uses mustard” and be the event “customer uses ketchup”. Thus,
we have, , and .

The probability that a ketchup user uses mustard is the conditional probability of event , given
event is

Similarly, the probability that a mustard user use ketchup is

Example: The question, "Do you like watching TV?" was asked of 100 people. Results are
shown in the table. What is the probability of a randomly selected individual is a male if it is
given that he likes watching TV?

Yes No Total
Male 19 41 60
Female 12 28 40
Total 31 69 100

Solution: The conditional probability M given Y is

P (M|Y) =

A bag contains red and blue marbles. Two marbles are drawn without replacement. The
probability of selecting a red marble and then a blue marble is 0.28. The probability of selecting
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a red marble on the first draw is 0.5. What is the probability of selecting a blue marble on the
second draw, given that the first marble drawn was red?

Solution:

Specific Multiplication Rule:

Specific Multiplication Rule:

The Specific Rule of Multiplication requires that two events A and B are independent.

This rule is written: P(A and B) = P(A)*P(B)

Example:

1. If the probability that person A will be alive in 0.7 and the probability that person B will
be alive in 0.5, what is the probability that they will both be alive in 20 years?

These are independent events, so

P(E1 and E2) = P(E1) × P(E2) = 0.7 × 0.5 = 0.35

[Note, however, that if person A knows person B, then they will be dependent events, especially
if A is married to B.]

2. A company has two large computers. The probability that the newer one will breakdown
on any particular month is 0.05, the probability that the older one will breakdown on any
particular month is 0.1. What is the probability that they will both breakdowns in a
particular month?

Solution

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Let, Event is the newer one will breakdown and Event is the older one will breakdown. So
that and .

General Multiplication Rule

The General Rule of Multiplication requires that two events A and B are dependent

P (A and B) = P (A) * P (B|A)

= P (A) * P(B|A)

Example

1. There are 10 rolls of film in a box, 3 of which are defective. Two rolls are to be selected
one after another. What is the probability of selecting a defective roll followed by another
defective roll?

Solution
The first roll of film selected from the box being found defective is event . .

The second roll selected being found defective is event . Therefore, . Since,
after the first selection was found to be defective, only 2 defective rolls of film remained in the
box containing 9 rolls.

So the probability of two defectives is

=3/10*2/9=.066

Complement rule

The complement rule is used to determine the probability of an event occurring by subtracting
the probability of the event not occurring from 1 i., e. .

Example

Weight Event Probability

Underweight A 0.025
Satisfactory B ??
Overweight C 0.075

Find .
Solution

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We know that .

Example:

It is known that the probability of obtaining zero defectives in a sample of 40 item is 0.34 while
the probability of obtaining 1 defective item in the sample is 0.46. What is the probability of

(a) obtaining not more than 1 defective item in a sample?

(b) obtaining more than 1 defective items in a sample?

"Obtaining not more than one" means we choose either 0 or 1 defective.

Let event E1 be "obtaining zero defectives" and E2 be "obtaining 1 defective item".

(a) Events E1 and E2 are mutually exclusive, so

P(E1 or E2) = P(E1) + P(E2) = 0.34 + 0.46 = 0.8

(b) P(more than 1)=1−0.8=0.2

Example
Rahim can hit a target 5 out of 7 chances. Karim can hit a target 6 out of [Link] the chances that
the target is hit once they both try?
Solution:
Suppose
P(A)=Probability that Rahim can hit the target=5/7
P( )=Probability that Rahim cannot hit the target=1-5/6=2/7

P(B)=Probability that karim can hit the target=6/11

P( )=Probability that karim cannot hit the target=1-6/11=5/11
The probability that no one can hit the target is =P( =

So,the chances that the target is hit one is =1- P( 1- =67/77=.87

Example: In a bag containing 29 marbls,5 of the marbles are red,2 are green .What is the
probability that the randomly selected marble is neither red nor green?

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